IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 4 được lấy từ cuốn sách Forcast Test 2026 - Q1 với trải nghiệm thi IELTS trên máy và giải thích đáp án chi tiết bằng Linearthinking, kèm answer key và list từ vựng IELTS cần học trong bài đọc.
IELTS Forcast Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 4 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 1
Question 1 - 5
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage? TRUE if the statement agrees with the information FALSE if the statement contradicts the information NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
1
Dogme 95 aimed to show that good films could be made without spending large sums of money.
2
The Dogme 95 manifesto was launched in Copenhagen in 1995.
3
The films Melancholia and Far From the Madding Crowd were made in accordance with the principles of the Dogme 95 manifesto.
4
None of the Dogme 95 films ever received critical acclaim.
5
The founders of the movement eventually became disenchanted with it.
Question 6 - 10
Complete each of the following statements with the best ending A-H from the box below.
List of Endings
A
put cameras on their shoulders
B
be avoided
C
prevent them from imposing their own style on a film
D
use professional musicians on the film soundtrack
E
use a maximum of one lamp when filming
F
alter the location they had chosen
G
tell the actors how to act
H
be seen on the screen
The vow of chastity did not allow directors to
6
The source of music or sound effects was to
7
Filmmakers were permitted to
8
Horror, fantasy and unnecessary violence were to
9
Directors were not credited in films in order to
10
Question 11 - 13
Choose THREE letters, A-G.
Which THREE rules could potentially have been violated in the first TWO Dogme 95 films?
A
Rule one
B
Rule two
C
Rule three
D
Rule four or five
E
Rule seven or eight
F
Rule ten
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 18
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
14
What point is the writer making about Robert Cialdini in the first paragraph?
A
He wants to change the way society operates.
B
He uses a wide variety of research techniques.
C
He has an unconventional approach to his work.
D
He refuses to make use of animals in his experiments.
15
What is the writer doing in the second paragraph?
A
Identifying a motivation for the research.
B
Assessing one aspect of Cialdini’s character.
C
Questioning Cialdini’s scientific research techniques.
D
Applauding researchers who examine their own experience.
16
What are we told about Cialdini’s research methodology?
A
It was conducted in a laboratory.
B
It involved him taking courses of study.
C
It was focused on one particular product.
D
It was based on interviews with salespeople.
17
What was Cialdini’s research question for the towel experiment?
A
Is it more effective not to use a card?
B
Does the message make any difference?
C
Why is the threat of pollution so persuasive?
D
Can hotels be persuaded to provide more towels?
18
The results of the towel experiment suggest that guests
A
were disinclined to tell the truth about towel use.
B
preferred not to receive a message with their towels.
C
were more receptive to messages about other guests.
D
responded more positively to an environmental message.
Question 19 - 23
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes on your answer sheet.
The six principles of persuasion
Cialdini’s towel experiment demonstrated the principle he named ‘social proof’, which can result in competitive materialism. His research using chocolates suggests that people don’t always assess the of transactions.
A further principle recommends that advertisers and parents should claim that something is a in order to be more persuasive. The authority principle is often ignored when some professionals are concerned their actions might be considered . He similarly suggests that people will give more to charity if they can be reminded of . Lastly, even something like a has been shown to result in more surveys being completed.
A
rare opportunity
B
previous commitments
C
generous response
D
true qualification
E
similar name
F
ruthless exploitation
G
social obligation
H
relative value
I
bad behaviour
J
personal motivation
Question 24 - 27
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage?
In following statements below, choose
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
24
The writer sees evidence of the reciprocity principle in his own family.
25
Persuasion may operate in different ways in different countries.
26
New Zealand diners are likely to leave tips if they are given chocolate.
27
Older New Zealanders would be more attracted to consistency.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 28 - 33
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
TRUE if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if it is impossible to say what the writer thinks about this
28
Chocolate was consumed by greater numbers of people in the nineteenth century than in previous times.
29
Fry's chocolate became more affordable because of the fall in price of one ingredient.
30
Entrepreneurial British chocolate manufacturers paid their employees well.
31
Customers were made ill through the practices of unscrupulous chocolate producers.
32
Fresh milk was used in the production of milk chocolate in Switzerland.
33
Lindt's conche machine was adopted by other manufacturers.
Question 34 - 40
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
Milton Hershey and the chocolate industry
• Hershey bought some
34.
after visiting a trade fair.
• After selling his caramel business, Hershey purchased a
35.
.
• The inhabitants of Hershey could not vote for a
36.
.
• Hershey set up a new town in Cuba around a mill.
• Hershey constructed
37.
to transport material.
• Hershey brought in
38.
to improve the image of his chocolate.
• One popular chocolate product had
39.
added to it.
• Because of the huge demand, tourists can only visit the
40.
at Hershey.
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
Dogme 95
Since its inception in the 1890s, cinema has seen many technical changes and advances and, as with any art form, there have been many different movements and styles associated with it. In 1995, a collective of Danish film directors wished to change the direction of filmmaking and reinforce the importance of cinematic truth. At the time, Hollywood blockbusters dominated the market. The ‘Dogme 95’ movement was created in order to prove that a big budget did not necessarily equate with quality in filmmaking.
The avant-garde movement was started by directors Lars Von Trier, later known for Melancholia (2011) and Thomas Vinterberg, director of the 2015 film Far from the Madding Crowd. The two directors created a manifesto which outlined certain rules for filmmakers, with the aim of directorial and editorial simplification. These ten rules of filmmaking were later jokingly dubbed the ‘vow of chastity’ by the directors.
The first rule stated that all shooting must be done on location. Furthermore, no props and sets could be brought in. If a specific prop, such as a piano, was needed in the plot, a location which already contained the said prop had to be selected.
The second rule of the manifesto concerned music and sound, asserting that these should be recorded while the film was being shot. If the directors wished to have music in a particular scene, then it had to originate from the characters, such as someone singing or playing a musical instrument on screen. Sound of this type is classified as diegetic; other forms of sound, such as voiceovers, narrations or atmospheric music, are non-diegetic and were therefore not in accordance with the manifesto.
The third rule stated that all filming should be done with a hand-held camera. Usually in filmmaking, cameras are placed on cranes or jibs in order to create a less shaky image and capture all angles. The fourth and fifth rules permitted only the use of colour film and natural lighting in Dogme films. Special lighting and filters were not allowed. The vow of chastity stated explicitly that should there be an unsatisfactory amount of light, a single lamp might be attached to the camera.
The sixth, seventh and eighth rules related to the plot. The film had to be set in the here and now, and in the place in which the filming occurred. Genre movies were unacceptable, so the film could not be horror or fantasy, for example, and had to be realistic. Finally, the films were not allowed to contain superficial action such as murders. These rules meant that the films were concerned with everyday aspects of life such as familial relationships, friendships and so on.
The ninth rule dictated only the use of the Academy 35mm format, the film gauge which is most commonly used in movies. The final rule stated that the director must not be credited. This most likely stemmed from the prevalence of high-budget films at the time, in which the popularity of the directors and actors alike was considered an important factor in choosing to go and see a film. The other aim of the final rule was to stop directors from showcasing their own personal tastes within their films and encouraging then to simply exhibit the truth about the characters and the story.
With these rules in mind, the two directors each went on to make a film following the rules of the manifesto. The first film to be made in accordance to the vow of chastity was Vinterberg’s Festen (1998). The film tells the story of a family gathering celebrating the head of the family’s sixtieth birthday. Vinterberg shot the film on a digital video camera and proceeded to blow it up to fit the 35mm gauge, giving the film a very grainy effect. Furthermore, Vinterberg confessed to having covered a window during a scene in Festen. Thus two of the rules were broken in this film. Every other aspect of the film followed the rules, however, including the sound which was solely diegetic. The film went on to win many awards, including the Jury Prize in the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
The second Dogme 95 film made was Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots (1998). It portrays a group of adults who are seeking a way to display their ‘inner idiots’. Although he generally complied with the rules, Von Trier admitted to having interfered with the location by moving candles around to achieve the desired lighting. He has been chided for his use of non-diegetic music during a scene of the film, an accusation which Von Trier has rebutted, explaining that he used a harmonica player for the music, and although the player was not in the scene itself, the sound was recorded at the same time as the image.
Following the creation of Festen and Idiots, further Danish directors joined the movement, forming the so-called ‘Dogme Brethren’. Filmmakers from all over the world have since attempted to follow the vow of chastity while creating Dogme 95 films, many finding it an effective way to approach making low-budget films. By 2005, over thirty Dogme 95 films had been made worldwide. Its founders terminated the movement in that year as they felt the manifesto was resulting in formulaic films. Despite this, the influence and importance of Dogme 95 in film history remains undeniable.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 1
1
True
Giải thích chi tiết
Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài True // False // Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified: Dogme 95 aimed to show that good films could be made without large sums of money
Main idea: Mục tiêu của Dogme 95 -> có thể làm phim hay với kinh phí thấp (big budget ≠ quality)
--------------------------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
Từ khoá: “Dogme 95”, "good films", "large sums of money", "budget", "quality"
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1 câu cuối.
--------------------------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
Trích dẫn: “The ‘Dogme 95’ movement was created in order to prove that a big budget did not necessarily equate with quality in filmmaking.”
Simplified: The Dogme 95 movement was created to prove a big budget ≠ quality in filmmaking
Main idea:Phong trào Dogme 95 được tạo ra để chứng minh rằng ngân sách lớn ≠ chất lượng trong làm phim.
--------------------------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Mục đích Dogme 95: chứng minh “ngân sách lớn không đồng nghĩa với chất lượng phim”.
Trong câu hỏi: Dogme 95 muốn chứng tỏ “phim hay có thể làmmà không phảichi nhiều tiền”.
-> Hai ý hoàn toàn trùng nhau (big budget không cần thiết → good films vẫn làm được với ít tiền).
Chọn: TRUE
--------------------------
Lưu ý chung:
• Nếu câu hỏi khẳng định ngược lại, ví dụ “Dogme 95 khẳng định chỉ phim có ngân sách lớn mới hay”, khi đó đáp án sẽ là FALSE.
• Nếu đoạn văn không hề nhắc tới mối liên hệ giữa ngân sách và chất lượng, khi đó đáp án mới là NOT GIVEN.
A New Zealand restaurateur assesses some recent research from the USA
Some scientists peer at things through high-powered telescopes, others tempt rats through mazes, or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Then there is Robert Cialdini, whose unorthodox research involves such mundane items as towels and chocolates. Nonetheless, Cialdini believes he is discovering important insights into how society works, because he is conducting research into why some people are more persuasive than others.
Cialdini hopes that, by applying a little science, we should all be able to get our own way more often. This is in part a personal quest with its origins in his own experience: Cialdini claims that for his whole life he has been easy prey for salespeople and fundraisers who have managed to persuade him to buy things he did not want or give to charities he had never heard of.
When he realised that traditional experiments on the psychology of persuasion were telling only a part of the story, Cialdini began to probe influence in the real world, enrolling in sales-training programmes. In this way, he believes he learned first-hand a great deal about how to sell automobiles from a car lot, insurance from an office, and even encyclopaedias door to door. Most recently, his research has involved the now-famous experiments with towels. Many hotels leave a little card in each bathroom asking guests to reuse towels and thus conserve water and reduce pollution. Cialdini and his colleagues wanted to test the relative effectiveness of different text on those cards. Could hotels best motivate their guests to co-operate simply because it would help save the planet, or were other factors more compelling?
To test this, the researchers redesigned the cards, replacing the environmental message with the simple (and truthful) statement that the majority of guests at the hotel had reused their towel at least once. Those guests who received this message were found to be 26% more likely to reuse their towel than those given the original message, and 74% more likely than those receiving no message at all.
This was just one study that has enabled Cialdini to identify his Six Principles of Persuasion. The phenomenon revealed by the towel experiment he calls "social proof": the idea that our decisions are influenced by what other people like us are doing. More perniciously, social proof is the force underpinning some people's anxiety not to be left behind by their neighbours, thus the desire for a bigger house or a faster car. A further principle, which he names "reciprocity," was tested in a restaurant by measuring how patrons would respond to after-dinner chocolates. When the chocolates were dropped individually in front of each diner, tips went up 14%. This is reciprocity in action: we want to return favours done to us, often without bothering to accurately calculate whether what we are giving is proportionate to what we have received.
Cialdini's research has established four more such principles. Scarcity is the idea that people want more of things they can have less of, a notion that advertisers ruthlessly exploit—"limit of four per customer". Parents can also make use of scarcity by telling their little ones that this is a very unusual chance, so they should seize it immediately. The principle of authority states that we trust people who know what they are talking about. Cialdini maintains that many professionals don’t display their credentials, fearing it is boastful or arrogant to publicise their expertise. The principle he labels "consistency" suggests that we want to act in ways that are consistent with undertakings we have already made. For example, if you are soliciting charitable donations, first ask colleagues if they think they will sponsor you. Later, return with a sponsorship form to those who said yes and remind them of their earlier undertaking. The final principle is likeness: we are more easily persuaded by those who seem similar to ourselves. In one study, people were sent survey forms and asked to return them to a named researcher. When the researcher falsely identified herself (e.g., Cynthia Johnson is sent a survey by Cindy Johansen), surveys were twice as likely to be completed.
Many of Cialdini's claims about persuasion are just that—highly persuasive—and I can readily see evidence for some of them in my own workplace. But Cialdini's experiments were conducted in the United States, and I wonder how well all of his findings can be applied here in New Zealand or elsewhere around the world. For instance, I do understand the general principle of "reciprocity," but cannot imagine New Zealand waiting staff using his cynical chocolate trick in their restaurants because the culture of tipping in this country is so different. But it is true that the way to a diner’s heart is to give them something they are not expecting in the way of service, and in this country, reciprocation would more likely take the form of a return visit to the restaurant and not a tip. It may be that age is also a factor and that different generations would react differently to, say, the "consistency" principle. I suspect that younger people in this country would respond quite positively to this sort of approach, whereas their parents might be put off by any hint of a hard sell. Perhaps in the end, we must accept that some of us are simply born with more persuasion skills than others and that we have less control over such matters than Cialdini might like to think.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
C
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Multiple Choice
Step 01: Read the question to understand
Simplified: What point is the writer making about Robert Cialdini in the first paragraph?
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: "first paragraph", “Robert Cialdini” → Từ khoá không thể paraphrase.
→ Đọc đoạn 1 và tìm miêu tả của tác giả về Robert Cialdini.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand
📌 Trích dẫn: “Some scientists peer at things through high-powered telescopes, others tempt rats through mazes, or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Then there is Robert Cialdini, whose unorthodox research involves such mundane items as towels and chocolates. Nonetheless, Cialdini believes he is discovering important insights into how society works, because he is conducting research into why some people are more persuasive than others.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: Other scientists use scientific tools (telescopes, glass beakers...) >< Cialdini conducts unorthodox research using mundane items as towels and chocolates .
Main idea: Cialdini có cách tiếp cậnrất khác thường trong nghiên cứu — thay vì dùng phương pháp khoa học truyền thống, ông nghiên cứu hành vi con người thông qua các vật dụng đời thường.
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
❌ A. He wants to change the way society operates.
→ Ông chỉ nghiên cứu cách xã hội hoạt động, không có ý định thay đổi → Sai.
❌ B. He uses a wide variety of research techniques.
→ Không nói ông dùng nhiều kỹ thuật, chỉ nói ông dùng cách “unorthodox” (khác thường) → Sai.
✅ C. He has an unconventional approach to his work.
→ “unorthodox research involves such mundane items as towels and chocolates” → thể hiện cách tiếp cận khác thường → Đúng.
❌ D. He refuses to make use of animals in his experiments.
→ Đoạn chỉ so sánh ông với những người dùng chuột, không nói ông “từ chối” → Sai.
For almost three thousand years, chocolate was a drink of the elite and the wealthy, originally in South America and later on in Europe. In the early 19th century, however, chocolate became far more widely available, and consumption shot up dramatically across the populations of Europe in particular.
It was 1828 that marked the beginning of the modern era in chocolate making and production. Chocolate as a drink had been known for centuries, but in 1828 a Dutch chemist named Van Houten developed a process for the manufacture of a new kind of powdered chocolate using a hydraulic press. Untreated chocolate 'liquor' - the end result of grinding the cacao beans from which chocolate is obtained - contains about 53 per cent cacao butter, but this machine removed nearly half of this, leaving a 'cake' that could be pulverized into a fine powder - what is now known as 'cocoa'.
In 1847, the British firm Fry and Sons found a way to mix a blend of cocoa powder and sugar with melted cacao butter to produce a thin paste which could be cast into various shapes. This was the world's first true solid chocolate. Thanks to immediate high demand for this product, the price of cacao butter escalated, so the new solid chocolate was only accessible for the elite. But this would eventually change, because of the introduction of cost-cutting methods and mass production.
By the latter half of the 19th century, many manufacturers had begun making their own chocolate, and using cocoa powder to hand-coat sugar confections. Cocoa powder also reached wide use in many other products, like ice creams and biscuits. Entrepreneurial families like the Frys and Cadburys in Britain had a social conscience in the midst of all this money-making, unlike many other 19th-century captains of industry. In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, where they had established their chocolate factory, the Cadburys created a model town with adequate housing for their workers, and even dining and reading rooms so that their employees had no need to spend anything on entertaining themselves.
However, the rising demand for chocolate also made it a target for unscrupulous producers and merchants. Sometimes the expensive cacao butter was completely extracted and replaced with olive or almond oil, or egg yolks. Alternatively, cheaper materials such as potato starch or flour were added.
In 1850, a health commission was created in Britain for the analysis of foods. Suspicions about chocolate proved well-founded - most of the samples contained starch grains from potatoes or other plants. The investigation inspired the British Food and Drug Act of 1860 and the Adulteration of Food Act of 1872. The invention of milk chocolate took place in Switzerland, and was a collaboration between two men. The first was Henri Nestle, a chemist who in 1867 discovered a process to make powdered milk by evaporation, when mixed with water, this could be fed to infants and small children. The second man, Daniel Peter, came up with the idea of using Nestle's milk powder in the manufacture of a new kind of chocolate, and, in 1879, the first milk chocolate bar was produced. Also in 1879 another Swiss, Rodolphe Lindt, invented the conche machine, which vastly improved the quality of chocolate confectionery. Before Lindt, solid chocolate was usually coarse and gritty.
Now, however, it achieved such a degree of smoothness that Lindt named it 'fondant', after the smooth sugar creams of that name. People on both sides of the Atlantic developed a taste for fondant chocolate, and the use of the conche machine for solid chocolate became universal in the business. In the USA, Milton Hershey dominated the chocolate industry. In 1893, after seeing examples of the machinery used in Europe in action at an international exhibition in Chicago, he bought some and began turning out chocolate coatings for the caramels he was already producing. But after a trip to the chocolate centers of Europe, he sold his caramel business for a million dollars, bought a farm in Pennsylvania, and built a chocolate factory there.
This became the nucleus of 'Hershey, the Chocolate Town', which contained amongst other things Hershey's imposing mansion, the Hershey Department Store and the Hershey Bank. There was, however, no elected mayor or indeed any democratic system in place. The whole town was in essence Milton Hershey's private kingdom, and he ran it as he wanted.
This was not the only Hershey town in existence. During a trip which he made to the island of Cuba in 1915, Hershey was inspired to build a new model town centered round a mill for grinding sugar. To transport the refined sugar so that it could be shipped by sea to his chocolate and cocoa factory, Hershey built modern electric railroads too.
To help advertise his products, Hershey employed nutritionists to proclaim their health qualities, and his chocolate bars and cocoa soon commanded the American market. Everything was mechanized - a true assembly-line operation. Hershey's best-selling bar contained almonds imported from southern Europe, dropped by machines into the waiting molds. Another popular product was 'Hershey's Kisses', bite-sized, flat-bottomed drops of chocolate, individually wrapped.
Nowadays so many tourists visit Hershey that the company no longer offers tours of its factory. Rather, visitors are whisked along on automated carts through an exhibition called 'Chocolate World', where they can see how their favorite products are produced.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
28
True
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài True / False / Not Given
Step 01: Read the question to understand (main idea + detail)
Simplified: Chocolate was consumed by greater numbers of people in the nineteenth century than before
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “19th century”, “chocolate”, “consumption”, “numbers of people”
-> Dựa vào các từ khoá trên, có thể tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1.
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “In the early 19th century, however, chocolate became far more widely available, and consumption shot up dramatically across the populations of Europe in particular.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: In the early 19th century , chocolate became more widely available
Consumption shot up dramatically across populations of Europe
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: Thế kỷ 19 → sô-cô-la phổ biến rộng rãi hơn và mức tiêu thụ tăng mạnh.
Trong câu hỏi: Thế kỷ 19 → nhiều người tiêu thụ sô-cô-la hơn so với trước.
⇒ ✅ Chọn: TRUE
-------
Lưu ý chung:
Nếu là False: Bài phải nói rằng trong thế kỷ 19 số người tiêu thụ ít hơn hoặc không tăng. (Ngược lại hoàn toàn)
Nếu là Not Given: Bài phải không nhắc đến sự khác biệt về mức tiêu thụ giữa thế kỷ 19 và trước đó. (Nhưng có nhắc rõ: “consumption shot up dramatically”)
Since its inception in the 1890s, cinema has seen many technical changes and advances and, as with any art form, there have been many different movements and styles associated with it. In 1995, a collective of Danish film directors wished to change the direction of filmmaking and reinforce the importance of cinematic truth. At the time, Hollywood blockbusters dominated the market. The ‘Dogme 95’ movement was created in order to prove that a big budget did not necessarily equate with quality in filmmaking.
The avant-garde movement was started by directors Lars Von Trier, later known for Melancholia (2011) and Thomas Vinterberg, director of the 2015 film Far from the Madding Crowd. The two directors created a manifesto which outlined certain rules for filmmakers, with the aim of directorial and editorial simplification. These ten rules of filmmaking were later jokingly dubbed the ‘vow of chastity’ by the directors.
The first rule stated that all shooting must be done on location. Furthermore, no props and sets could be brought in. If a specific prop, such as a piano, was needed in the plot, a location which already contained the said prop had to be selected.
The second rule of the manifesto concerned music and sound, asserting that these should be recorded while the film was being shot. If the directors wished to have music in a particular scene, then it had to originate from the characters, such as someone singing or playing a musical instrument on screen. Sound of this type is classified as diegetic; other forms of sound, such as voiceovers, narrations or atmospheric music, are non-diegetic and were therefore not in accordance with the manifesto.
The third rule stated that all filming should be done with a hand-held camera. Usually in filmmaking, cameras are placed on cranes or jibs in order to create a less shaky image and capture all angles. The fourth and fifth rules permitted only the use of colour film and natural lighting in Dogme films. Special lighting and filters were not allowed. The vow of chastity stated explicitly that should there be an unsatisfactory amount of light, a single lamp might be attached to the camera.
The sixth, seventh and eighth rules related to the plot. The film had to be set in the here and now, and in the place in which the filming occurred. Genre movies were unacceptable, so the film could not be horror or fantasy, for example, and had to be realistic. Finally, the films were not allowed to contain superficial action such as murders. These rules meant that the films were concerned with everyday aspects of life such as familial relationships, friendships and so on.
The ninth rule dictated only the use of the Academy 35mm format, the film gauge which is most commonly used in movies. The final rule stated that the director must not be credited. This most likely stemmed from the prevalence of high-budget films at the time, in which the popularity of the directors and actors alike was considered an important factor in choosing to go and see a film. The other aim of the final rule was to stop directors from showcasing their own personal tastes within their films and encouraging then to simply exhibit the truth about the characters and the story.
With these rules in mind, the two directors each went on to make a film following the rules of the manifesto. The first film to be made in accordance to the vow of chastity was Vinterberg’s Festen (1998). The film tells the story of a family gathering celebrating the head of the family’s sixtieth birthday. Vinterberg shot the film on a digital video camera and proceeded to blow it up to fit the 35mm gauge, giving the film a very grainy effect. Furthermore, Vinterberg confessed to having covered a window during a scene in Festen. Thus two of the rules were broken in this film. Every other aspect of the film followed the rules, however, including the sound which was solely diegetic. The film went on to win many awards, including the Jury Prize in the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.
The second Dogme 95 film made was Lars Von Trier’s The Idiots (1998). It portrays a group of adults who are seeking a way to display their ‘inner idiots’. Although he generally complied with the rules, Von Trier admitted to having interfered with the location by moving candles around to achieve the desired lighting. He has been chided for his use of non-diegetic music during a scene of the film, an accusation which Von Trier has rebutted, explaining that he used a harmonica player for the music, and although the player was not in the scene itself, the sound was recorded at the same time as the image.
Following the creation of Festen and Idiots, further Danish directors joined the movement, forming the so-called ‘Dogme Brethren’. Filmmakers from all over the world have since attempted to follow the vow of chastity while creating Dogme 95 films, many finding it an effective way to approach making low-budget films. By 2005, over thirty Dogme 95 films had been made worldwide. Its founders terminated the movement in that year as they felt the manifesto was resulting in formulaic films. Despite this, the influence and importance of Dogme 95 in film history remains undeniable.
was created to prove
a big budget ≠ quality in filmmaking
Some scientists peer at things through high-powered telescopes, others tempt rats through mazes, or mix bubbling fluids in glass beakers. Then there is Robert Cialdini, whose unorthodox research involves such mundane items as towels and chocolates. Nonetheless, Cialdini believes he is discovering important insights into how society works, because he is conducting research into why some people are more persuasive than others.
Cialdini hopes that, by applying a little science, we should all be able to get our own way more often. This is in part a personal quest with its origins in his own experience: Cialdini claims that for his whole life he has been easy prey for salespeople and fundraisers who have managed to persuade him to buy things he did not want or give to charities he had never heard of.
When he realised that traditional experiments on the psychology of persuasion were telling only a part of the story, Cialdini began to probe influence in the real world, enrolling in sales-training programmes. In this way, he believes he learned first-hand a great deal about how to sell automobiles from a car lot, insurance from an office, and even encyclopaedias door to door. Most recently, his research has involved the now-famous experiments with towels. Many hotels leave a little card in each bathroom asking guests to reuse towels and thus conserve water and reduce pollution. Cialdini and his colleagues wanted to test the relative effectiveness of different text on those cards. Could hotels best motivate their guests to co-operate simply because it would help save the planet, or were other factors more compelling?
To test this, the researchers redesigned the cards, replacing the environmental message with the simple (and truthful) statement that the majority of guests at the hotel had reused their towel at least once. Those guests who received this message were found to be 26% more likely to reuse their towel than those given the original message, and 74% more likely than those receiving no message at all.
This was just one study that has enabled Cialdini to identify his Six Principles of Persuasion. The phenomenon revealed by the towel experiment he calls "social proof": the idea that our decisions are influenced by what other people like us are doing. More perniciously, social proof is the force underpinning some people's anxiety not to be left behind by their neighbours, thus the desire for a bigger house or a faster car. A further principle, which he names "reciprocity," was tested in a restaurant by measuring how patrons would respond to after-dinner chocolates. When the chocolates were dropped individually in front of each diner, tips went up 14%. This is reciprocity in action: we want to return favours done to us, often without bothering to accurately calculate whether what we are giving is proportionate to what we have received.
Cialdini's research has established four more such principles. Scarcity is the idea that people want more of things they can have less of, a notion that advertisers ruthlessly exploit—"limit of four per customer". Parents can also make use of scarcity by telling their little ones that this is a very unusual chance, so they should seize it immediately. The principle of authority states that we trust people who know what they are talking about. Cialdini maintains that many professionals don’t display their credentials, fearing it is boastful or arrogant to publicise their expertise. The principle he labels "consistency" suggests that we want to act in ways that are consistent with undertakings we have already made. For example, if you are soliciting charitable donations, first ask colleagues if they think they will sponsor you. Later, return with a sponsorship form to those who said yes and remind them of their earlier undertaking. The final principle is likeness: we are more easily persuaded by those who seem similar to ourselves. In one study, people were sent survey forms and asked to return them to a named researcher. When the researcher falsely identified herself (e.g., Cynthia Johnson is sent a survey by Cindy Johansen), surveys were twice as likely to be completed.
Many of Cialdini's claims about persuasion are just that—highly persuasive—and I can readily see evidence for some of them in my own workplace. But Cialdini's experiments were conducted in the United States, and I wonder how well all of his findings can be applied here in New Zealand or elsewhere around the world. For instance, I do understand the general principle of "reciprocity," but cannot imagine New Zealand waiting staff using his cynical chocolate trick in their restaurants because the culture of tipping in this country is so different. But it is true that the way to a diner’s heart is to give them something they are not expecting in the way of service, and in this country, reciprocation would more likely take the form of a return visit to the restaurant and not a tip. It may be that age is also a factor and that different generations would react differently to, say, the "consistency" principle. I suspect that younger people in this country would respond quite positively to this sort of approach, whereas their parents might be put off by any hint of a hard sell. Perhaps in the end, we must accept that some of us are simply born with more persuasion skills than others and that we have less control over such matters than Cialdini might like to think.
in the first paragraph?
Simplified: Other scientists use scientific tools (telescopes, glass beakers...) >< Cialdini conducts unorthodox research using mundane items as towels and chocolates .
Main idea: Cialdini có cách tiếp cậnrất khác thường trong nghiên cứu — thay vì dùng phương pháp khoa học truyền thống, ông nghiên cứu hành vi con người thông qua các vật dụng đời thường.
For almost three thousand years, chocolate was a drink of the elite and the wealthy, originally in South America and later on in Europe. In the early 19th century, however, chocolate became far more widely available, and consumption shot up dramatically across the populations of Europe in particular.
It was 1828 that marked the beginning of the modern era in chocolate making and production. Chocolate as a drink had been known for centuries, but in 1828 a Dutch chemist named Van Houten developed a process for the manufacture of a new kind of powdered chocolate using a hydraulic press. Untreated chocolate 'liquor' - the end result of grinding the cacao beans from which chocolate is obtained - contains about 53 per cent cacao butter, but this machine removed nearly half of this, leaving a 'cake' that could be pulverized into a fine powder - what is now known as 'cocoa'.
In 1847, the British firm Fry and Sons found a way to mix a blend of cocoa powder and sugar with melted cacao butter to produce a thin paste which could be cast into various shapes. This was the world's first true solid chocolate. Thanks to immediate high demand for this product, the price of cacao butter escalated, so the new solid chocolate was only accessible for the elite. But this would eventually change, because of the introduction of cost-cutting methods and mass production.
By the latter half of the 19th century, many manufacturers had begun making their own chocolate, and using cocoa powder to hand-coat sugar confections. Cocoa powder also reached wide use in many other products, like ice creams and biscuits. Entrepreneurial families like the Frys and Cadburys in Britain had a social conscience in the midst of all this money-making, unlike many other 19th-century captains of industry. In the Birmingham suburb of Bournville, where they had established their chocolate factory, the Cadburys created a model town with adequate housing for their workers, and even dining and reading rooms so that their employees had no need to spend anything on entertaining themselves.
However, the rising demand for chocolate also made it a target for unscrupulous producers and merchants. Sometimes the expensive cacao butter was completely extracted and replaced with olive or almond oil, or egg yolks. Alternatively, cheaper materials such as potato starch or flour were added.
In 1850, a health commission was created in Britain for the analysis of foods. Suspicions about chocolate proved well-founded - most of the samples contained starch grains from potatoes or other plants. The investigation inspired the British Food and Drug Act of 1860 and the Adulteration of Food Act of 1872. The invention of milk chocolate took place in Switzerland, and was a collaboration between two men. The first was Henri Nestle, a chemist who in 1867 discovered a process to make powdered milk by evaporation, when mixed with water, this could be fed to infants and small children. The second man, Daniel Peter, came up with the idea of using Nestle's milk powder in the manufacture of a new kind of chocolate, and, in 1879, the first milk chocolate bar was produced. Also in 1879 another Swiss, Rodolphe Lindt, invented the conche machine, which vastly improved the quality of chocolate confectionery. Before Lindt, solid chocolate was usually coarse and gritty.
Now, however, it achieved such a degree of smoothness that Lindt named it 'fondant', after the smooth sugar creams of that name. People on both sides of the Atlantic developed a taste for fondant chocolate, and the use of the conche machine for solid chocolate became universal in the business. In the USA, Milton Hershey dominated the chocolate industry. In 1893, after seeing examples of the machinery used in Europe in action at an international exhibition in Chicago, he bought some and began turning out chocolate coatings for the caramels he was already producing. But after a trip to the chocolate centers of Europe, he sold his caramel business for a million dollars, bought a farm in Pennsylvania, and built a chocolate factory there.
This became the nucleus of 'Hershey, the Chocolate Town', which contained amongst other things Hershey's imposing mansion, the Hershey Department Store and the Hershey Bank. There was, however, no elected mayor or indeed any democratic system in place. The whole town was in essence Milton Hershey's private kingdom, and he ran it as he wanted.
This was not the only Hershey town in existence. During a trip which he made to the island of Cuba in 1915, Hershey was inspired to build a new model town centered round a mill for grinding sugar. To transport the refined sugar so that it could be shipped by sea to his chocolate and cocoa factory, Hershey built modern electric railroads too.
To help advertise his products, Hershey employed nutritionists to proclaim their health qualities, and his chocolate bars and cocoa soon commanded the American market. Everything was mechanized - a true assembly-line operation. Hershey's best-selling bar contained almonds imported from southern Europe, dropped by machines into the waiting molds. Another popular product was 'Hershey's Kisses', bite-sized, flat-bottomed drops of chocolate, individually wrapped.
Nowadays so many tourists visit Hershey that the company no longer offers tours of its factory. Rather, visitors are whisked along on automated carts through an exhibition called 'Chocolate World', where they can see how their favorite products are produced.
