IELTS Real Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 1 with Practice Test, Answers And Explanation
Luyện tập đề IELTS Real Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 1 được lấy từ cuốn sách Real 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 Real Reading Test 2026 - Q1 Test 1 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
The TF Nextstage stores planned to sell products to make life easier for older people.
2
TF’s market research indicated that people liked the products.
3
It cost more than expected to remodel the TF stores.
4
The TF Nextstage coffee shops sold their own brand of food and drink
5
TF Nextstage customers liked the atmosphere in the new stores
Question 6 - 13
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
FEEDBACK FROM EXPERTS
Donna Sturgess
Problems with customer research:
- TF team limited their research to attitudes that occur at a
6.
level in customers’ minds
- TF didn’t consider customers’ emotions
How my company dealt with a similar problem:
- Product: Alli
- Use: help people achieve
7.
- Marketing aim: help customers see the product a positive way by:
- Giving the product a
8.
that seems helpful and supportive
- Giving the product a reusable
9.
Market research
- does not need to be complex
- good information can come from interviews or studying the
10.
of consumers in the home
Alex Lee
Problem:
- Customers are attracted to the ideal not the reality, e.g. ads for surf gear.
How my company dealt with a similar problem:
- We organised
11.
to find out what images customers associate with our products.
- We do not call our products helping tools in our marketing campaigns.
Market research:
- can be basic, e.g. by doing
12.
- Company executives should follow their
13.
.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 2
Question 14 - 19
Reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-G
Which paragraph contains the following information?
Write the correct letter, A-G
14
how legislation has forced building designers to improve water use
15
two reasons why one river was isolated from its flood plain
16
how natural water courses in the past assisted flood control
17
an example of flood control on one river affecting three countries
18
a country which has partly destroyed one of its most typical features in order to control water
19
the writer’s comment on the comparative cost effectiveness of traditional flood control and newer methods
Question 20 - 21
Choose TWO letters, A-E.
According to the article, which TWO of these statements are true of the new approach to flood control?
A
It aims to slow the movement of water to the sea.
B
It aims to channel water more directly into rivers.
C
It will cost more than twice as much as former measures.
D
It will involve the loss of some areas of land.
E
It has been tested only in The Netherlands.
Question 22 - 26
Complete the sentences below.
Write NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer.
Some of the most severe floods for many centuries have recently occurred in parts of
22.
.
The Rhine and the
23.
rivers have experienced similar problems with water control.
An area near Oxford will flooded to protect the city of
24.
.
Planners who wish to allow water to pass more freely through city surfaces are called
25.
.
A proposal for part of the city of
26.
could show whether small-scale water projects could apply on a large scale.
Passage
❓ Câu hỏi passage 3
Question 27 - 30
Choose the correct letter, A, B, C or D.
Write the correct letter in boxes on your answer sheet.
27
In the first paragraph, the writer suggests that a musician who is talented is someone
A
who is aware of being set apart from other people
B
whose brain structure is unlike that of other people.
C
who can perform extremely well in early childhood.
D
whose essential skills are more varied than those of ordinary people.
28
According to the writer, what is unclear about the findings of Gottfried Schlaug?
A
which part of the brain is linked to a particular musical skill.
B
which type of musical skill leads to the greatest change in the brain.
C
whether a feature of the brain is a cause or an effect of a musical skill.
D
whether the acquisition of a musical skill is easier for some people than others.
29
According to the writer, what has been established by studies of violin players?
A
Changes may occur in the brain following violin practice.
B
Left-handed violinists have a different brain structure from other people.
C
A violinist’s hand size is not due to practice but to genetic factors.
D
Violinists are born with brains that have a particular structure.
30
According to the writer, findings on the amount of practices done by expert musicians suggest that
A
talent may have little to do with expertise.
B
practice may actually prevent the development of talent.
C
talent may not be recognised by teachers.
D
expertise may be related to quality of instruction.
Question 31 - 36
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
31
Anders Ericsson’s work with cognitive psychology has influenced other researchers.
32
Different areas of expertise seem to have one specific thing in common.
33
In order to be useful, practice must be carried out regularly every day.
34
Anyone who practices for long enough can reach the level of a world-class expert.
35
Occasionally, someone can become an expert at global level with fewer than 10,000 hours of practice
36
Existing knowledge of learning and cognitive skills supports the importance of practice.
Question 37 - 40
Complete the summary using the list of words, A-J, below.
Write the correct letter, A-J, in boxes on your answer sheet.
Mozart
The case of Mozart could be quoted as evidence against the 10,000-hour practice theory. However, the writer points out that the young Mozart received a lot of from his father, and that the symphony he wrote at the age of was not and may be of only academic interest. The case, therefore, supports the view that expertise is not solely the result of characteristics.
A
popular
B
artistic
C
completed
D
eight
E
tuition
F
encouragement
G
inherited
H
four
I
practice
J
two
DOL IELTS Đình Lực
05/05/2026
📖 Bài đọc passage 1
WHY GOOD IDEAS FAIL
As part of a marketing course, two marketing experts comment on a hypothetical case study involving TF, a fiction retail giant specializing in home furnishing. The experts give concrete solutions and advice to assist students.
Hypothetical case study:
TF became a retail success in the 1970s when it succeeded in spotting homeware trends and meeting the needs of its then trendy young customers. However, by 2004, the IF stores were failing and a rethink was clearly necessary. Tibal Fisher, TF’s founder and CEO, decided to change its focus under the new brand name of TVs Next stage. His aim was to recapture the now ageing customers that had given him his early success and target consumers aged 60+ with devices and gadgets specifically designed to assist them with the problems associated with ageing: mobile phones with screens that were easy to read; kitchen gadgets with comfortable grips; electronic devices that were easy to set and adjust. TF’s market research proved to be very positive, showing strong consumer support for the products.
In 2007, the stores were remodeled at a cost of US $40 million and the new brand was launched. Each store was made more comfortable and featured a coffee shop to help increase traffic - Tibal had predicted that if they could get customers into the stores then the products would sell themselves. However, by 2009 it was clear that the idea was a failure and the stores consistently remained empty. Customers complained that the new stores felt like a senior center and reminded them that they were growing old.
Feedback from expert
Expert 1: Donna Sturgess, global head of innovation, GlaxoSmithKline
The TReam’s customer research efforts are a classic case of missing the subconscious associations at work in consumers’ minds. Tibal and his executives looked only at surface attitudes. Since those attitudes make up a relatively small part of the total consumer response, the executives are clueless about the reason for the poor sales. It’s critical for companies to understand that every customer relates to a brand emotionally, and it’s those emotions that trigger - or block - purchases.
That's why we’ve focused on using emotional strategies behind branding for a number of years now. A great example is Alli (pronounced ‘ally’), a drug to aid weight loss. The product deals with a highly emotional issue, so in marketing it, we faced the same challenge that the new TF stores are facing: the very thought of buying the product reminds customers that they have problems they feel negatively. In the case of TF’s Next stage, the problems are age and infirmity. In the case of Alli, the problems are excessive weight and all consequences. There’s always a risk that consumers’ negative feelings will discourage them from starting or staying on a diet. So, after extensive market research, we took a number of steps to inject emotions into the whole process of using the product.
First we came up with a name that sounds like a helpful partner. We also aimed to make the container both beautiful and functional — something that didn’t just hold pills but could later be used to store diet guides and recipes. Traditional market research is unlikely to uncover ideas like this, so we use a wide variety of techniques. Even simple techniques such as one-on-one interviews, or ethnographical observation that involves going into people’s houses to examine their behaviour, can provide valuable data.
Expert 2: Alex Lee, president of OXO International, maker of OXO Good Grips household products
This retailer can get back on track by remembering a principle that applies to consumers. In general and those aged 60+ in particular: they’re attracted by brands they associate with the type of people they’d like to be - not the type they really are. That's why marketing campaigns for surf gear feature surfers, not the city dwellers who will wear the products while doing their shopping.
I was reminded of this principle few years ago when we wanted to find out how far we could apply our design philosophy of makings things easier to use in order to move from our core business, kitchen tools, into other products. We conducted what are known as focus groups, where participants were asked to look at photos of people and pick those they are perceived to be users and nonusers of our products. Consistently they picked people who looked fit as the sort who would use our products, and people who look old and boring as the sort who wouldn’t. Yet the participants, all owners of our products, looked a lot more like the later than the former.
Although the needs of elderly users and those with deteriorating vision or dexterity are very much taken into consideration when we develop new designs, we try to offer that appeal to 20-and-30-year-olds. We believe that referring to these products as helping tools would serve only to harm the brand in our customers’ eyes. That’s why our philosophy of universal design, which involves creating products that are comfortably useable by the largest possible range of people, is never explicitly stated as part of our marketing position.
We’ve found that market research does not need to be very sophisticated. For instance, we have conducted simple surveys in the lobby of our building offering free products in exchange for people’s opinions. Some may call this unscientific but we have uncovered great insights this way. Sometimes the most important signals come from an executive’s own instincts. In Tibal fisher’s case, this could have told him what his surveys and focus groups didn't: 60-plus-year-olds won't support a business that expects them to act their age.
🔥 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)
Câu hỏi:The TF Nextstage stores planned to sell products to make life easier for older people.
Simplified: TF Nextstage stores planned to sell products to make life easierfor older people
Main idea: TF Nextstage có kế hoạch bán các sản phẩm → giúp cuộc sống của người cao tuổi dễ dàng hơn.
-------
Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: “TF Nextstage”, “older people”, “products”, “make life easier”
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1 (Hypothetical case study)
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand (main + detail)
📌 Trích dẫn: “His aim was to recapture the now ageing customers that had given him his early success and target consumers aged 60+ with devices and gadgets specifically designed to assist them with the problems associated with ageing...” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified: He targeted consumers aged 60+ with devices and gadgets designed to assist with problemsassociated with ageing
Main idea: TF nhắm tới khách hàng trên 60 tuổi → bán các thiết bị hỗ trợ giải quyết khó khăn do tuổi tác (ví dụ: điện thoại dễ đọc, đồ bếp dễ cầm).
-------
Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
Trong bài đọc: TF muốn bán sản phẩm được thiết kế để giúp người lớn tuổi giải quyết các vấn đề do tuổi tác.
Trong câu hỏi: TF dự định bán sản phẩm để giúp cuộc sống người cao tuổi dễ dàng hơn.
⇒ ✅ Chọn: TRUE
-------
Lí do:
Nếu là FALSE → bài đọc phải nói TF không nhắm đến người già hoặc không bán sản phẩm hỗ trợ họ, nhưng đoạn văn khẳng định điều ngược lại.
Nếu là NOT GIVEN → bài đọc phải không đề cập đến mục tiêu giúp đỡ người cao tuổi, nhưng trong thực tế có nói rất rõ “designed to assist them with the problems associated with ageing”.
→ Vì vậy, đáp án chính xác là TRUE.
A. Recently, winter floods on the rivers of central Europe have been among the worst for 600 to 700 years, and dams and dykes (protective sea walls) have failed to solve the problem. Traditionally, river engineers have tried to get rid of the water quickly, draining it off the land and down to the sea in rivers reengineered as high-performance drains. But however high they build the artificial riverbanks, the floods keep coming back. And when they come, they seem to be worse than ever.
B
B.
Engineers are now turning to a different plan: to sap the water’s destructive strength by dispersing it into fields; forgotten lakes and floods plains. They are reviving river bends and marshes to curb the flow, and even plugging city drains to encourage floodwater to use other means to go underground. Back in the days when rivers took a winding path to the sea, floodwaters lost force and volume while meandering across flood plains and inland deltas, but today the water tends to have a direct passage to the sea. This means that, when it rains in the uplands, the water comes down all at once.
C
Worse, when the flood plains are closed off, the river’s flow downstream becomes more violent and uncontrollable; by turning complex river systems into the simple mechanics of a water pipe, engineers have often created danger where they promised safety. The Rhine, Europe’s most engineered river; is a good example. For a long time, engineers have erased its backwaters and cut it off from its plain. The aim was partly to improve navigation, and partly to speed floodwaters out of Alps and down to the North Sea. Now, when it rains in the Alps, the peak flows from several branches of the Rhine coincide where once they arrived separately, and with four-fifths of the Lower Rhine's flood plain barricaded off, the waters rise. The result is more frequent flooding and greater damage. The same thing has happened in the US on the Mississippi river, which drains the world’s second largest river catchment into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite some $7 billion spent over the last century on levees (embankments) the situation is growing worse.
D
Specialists in water control now say that a new approach is needed - one which takes the whole landscape into consideration. To help keep London’s feet dry, the UK Environment Agency is reflooding 10 square kilometres of the ancient flood plain of the River Thames outside Oxford. Nearer to London, it has spent £100 million creating new wetlands and a relief channel across 16 kilometres of flood plain. Similar ideas ate being tested in Austria, in one of Europe's largest river restorations to date. The engineers calculate that the restored flood plain of the Drava River can now store up to 10 million cubic metres of floodwater, and slow down storm surges coming out of the Alps by more than an hour, protecting towns not only in Austria, but as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia.
E
The Dutch, for whom preventing floods is a matter of survival, have gone furthest. This nation, built largely on drained marshes and seabed, has had several severe shocks in the last two decades, when very large numbers of people have had to be evacuated. Since that time, the Dutch have broken one of their most enduring national stereotypes by allowing engineers to punch holes in dykes. They plan to return up to a sixth of the country to its former waterlogged state in order to better protect the rest.
F
Water use in cities also needs to change. At the moment, cities seem to create floods; they are concreted and paved so that rains flow quickly into rivers. A new breed of ‘soft engineers’ wants cities to porous, Berlin is one place where this is being done. Tough new rules for new developments mean that drains will be prevented from becoming overloaded after heavy rains. Architects of new urban buildings are diverting rainwater from the roofs for use in toilets and the irrigation of roof gardens, while water falling onto the ground is collected in ponds, or passes underground through porous paving. One high-tech urban development can store a sixth of its annual rainfall, and reuse most of the rest.
G
Could this be expanded to protect a whole city? The test case could Los Angeles. With non-porous surfaces covering 70% of the city, drainage is a huge challenge. Billions of dollars have been spent digging huge drains and concreting riverbeds, but many communities still flood regularly. Meanwhile this desert city ships water from hundreds of kilometres away to fill its taps and swimming pool. Los Angeles has recently launched a new scheme to utilise floodwater in the Sun Valley section of the city. The plan is to catch the rain that falls on thousands of driveways, parking lots and rooftops in the valley. Trees will soak up water from parking lots; houses and public buildings will capture roof water to irrigate gardens and parks, and road drains will empty into old gravel pits to recharge the city's underground water reserves. Result: less flooding and more water for the city. It may sound expensive, until we realise how much is spent trying to drain cities and protect areas from flooding, and bow little this method achieves.
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 2
14
F
Giải thích chi tiết
Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Matching Information
📌 Dạng Matching Information chúng ta nên làm cuối cùng, sau khi đã làm các dạng câu hỏi khác nhé DOLBIES, bởi vì lúc này mình đã đọc và hiểu nội dung của bài rồi → sẽ nhanh chóng tìm được vị trí đáp án hơn!!
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✅ Step 1: Phân tích câu hỏi (Matching Information) how legislation has forced building designers to improve water use .
Dự đoán thông tin cần tìm (SPECIFY):
“legislation” ⇒ đoạn đúng phải nhắc rules/laws/regulations (quy định) chứ không chỉ là lời khuyên.
“has forced” ⇒ mang sắc thái bắt buộc/đặt ra yêu cầu (ví dụ: rules mean that… will be prevented/required…).
“building designers” ⇒ có thể là architects / developers / planners.
“improve water use” ⇒ các giải pháp kiểu thu gom/tái sử dụng nước mưa, dùng nước hiệu quả hơn (toilets, irrigation, storage, recharge…).
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✅ Step 2: Locate bằng chứng
Đoạn F nói trực tiếp về việc quy định mới buộc các dự án xây dựng phải xử lý nước mưa khác đi, và kiến trúc sư phải thiết kế hệ thống tái sử dụng nước.
Câu bằng chứng tiêu biểu (trích đúng ý từ đoạn F):
“ Tough new rules ... mean that drains will be prevented from becoming overloaded ...”
“ Architects of new urban buildings are diverting rainwater from the roofs for use in toilets and the irrigation of roof gardens ...”
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✅ Step 3: Đối chiếu paraphrasing
legislation ⇔ tough new rules
has forced ⇔ mean that + will be prevented (nghĩa là quy định “ép” hệ thống phải làm theo, không phải lựa chọn tự nguyện)
building designers ⇔ Architects of new urban buildings
improve water use ⇔ diverting rainwater… for use in toilets / irrigation (= dùng nước mưa thay cho nước sạch cho các mục đích phù hợp)
⇒ Match đúng yêu cầu câu hỏi → Paragraph F.
❌ Những đáp án “bẫy” hay dính
Bẫy đoạn G: có nhiều giải pháp thu nước mưa ở Los Angeles (capture roof water, recharge underground reserves) nên skim/scan dễ chọn. Nhưng G là một “scheme/plan” của thành phố, không nhấn vào legislation/rules ép kiến trúc sư phải làm.
Bẫy đoạn D/E: có các dự án lớn (wetlands, reflooding flood plains, punch holes in dykes) nhưng đây là quản lý sông/ngập lụt quy mô vùng, không phải “luật buộc building designers/architects cải thiện water use” trong thiết kế công trình.
How does someone become expert in music? And is it really possible to have a ‘talent’ for music?
Does that class of people acknowledged to be musical experts just have more of the same basic skills we are all endowed with, or do they have a set of abilities - or neural structures - that are totally different from those of the rest of us? Are high levels of musical achievement simply the result of training and practice, or are they based on innate brain structure - what we refer to as ‘talent’? Talent can be defined as something that originates in genetic structures and that is identifiable by trained people who can recognize its existence before a person has achieved exceptional levels of performance. The emphasis on early identification means that to investigate it, we study the development of skills in children.
It is evident that some children acquire skills more rapidly than others: the age of onset for walking and talking varies widely, even between children in the same household. There may be genetic factors at work, but these are closely linked with other factors - with a presumably environmental component - such as motivation and family dynamics. Similar factors can influence musical development and can mask the contribution of genetics to musical ability.
Brain studies, so far, haven’t been of much use in sorting out the issues. Gottfried Schlaug at Harvard collected brain scans of individuals with absolute pitch* (AP) and showed that a region in the brain called the planum temporale is larger in these people than in others. This suggests that the planum is involved in AP, but it’s not clear if it starts out larger in people who eventually acquire AP, or if the acquisition of AP makes the planum increase in size.
Results of research into the areas of the brain involved in skilled motor movement are more conclusive. Studies of violin players have shown that the region of the brain responsible for controlling the movement of the left hand (the hand that requires greater precision in violin playing) increases in size as a result of practice. We do not know yet if the propensity for increase pre-exists in some people, not others.
The evidence against talent comes from research on how much training the experts do. Like experts in mathematics, chess, or sports, experts in music require lengthy periods of instruction and practice. In several studies, the very best music students were found to have practiced more than twice as much as the others. In another study, students were secretly divided into two groups based on teachers’ perceptions of their talent. Several years later, it was found that the students who achieved the highest performance ratings had practiced the most, irrespective of which talent group they had been assigned to, suggesting that practice does not merely correlate with achievement, but causes it.
Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, approaches the topic of musical expertise as a general problem in cognitive psychology. He takes as a starting point the assumption that there are certain issues involved in becoming an expert at anything; that we can learn about musical expertise by studying expert chess players, athletes, artists, mathematicians, as well as the musicians themselves. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Someone would do this amount of practice if they practiced, for example, roughly 20 hours a week for ten years. Of course, this does not address why some people do not seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no-one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
The ten-thousand-hour theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something, the stronger the memory/learning trace for that experience becomes. Although people differ in how long it takes them to consolidate information neutrally, it remains true that increased practice leads to a greater number of neural traces, which create stronger memory representation.
The classic rebuttal to this theory goes something like this: ‘What about Mozart? I hear that he composed his first symphony at the age of four!’ First, there is a factual error here: Mozart did not write it until he was eight. Still, this is unusual, to say the least. However, this early work received little acclaim and was not performed very often. In fact, the only reason we know about it is because the child who wrote it grew up to become Mozart. And Mozart had an expert teacher in his father, who was renowned as a teacher of musicians all over Europe. We do not know how much Mozart practiced, but if he started at age two and worked thirty-two hours a week (quite possible, given that his father was a stern taskmaster) he would have made his ten thousand hours by the time he composed his first symphony. This does not mean that there are no genetic factors involved in Mozart’s greatness, but that inborn traits may not be the only cause.
------------------------------
individuals with absolute pitch*: people who can identify or sing any musical note correctly without help
🔥 Đáp án & giải thích 3
27
C
Giải thích chi tiết
☺️ Ứng dụng Linearthinking để giải quyết dạng bài Multiple Choice
Step 01: Read the question to understand
Simplified: In the first paragraph , a musician who is talented is someone
Main idea: Câu hỏi yêu cầu xác định quan điểm của tác giả về đặc điểm của một nhạc sĩ tài năng – người như thế nào được xem là có năng khiếu âm nhạc.
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Step 02: Locate relevant information
🔍 Từ khóa: first paragraph; musician; talented
→ Dựa vào các từ khoá trên → Tìm được trích dẫn ở đoạn 1
-------
Step 03: Read relevant information to understand
📌 Trích dẫn: “Talent can be defined as something that originates in genetic structures and that is identifiable by trained people who can recognize its existence before a person has achieved exceptional levels of performance. The emphasis on early identification means that to investigate it, we study the development of skills in children.” (Đoạn 1)
Simplified:
1Talent can be defined as something originating in genetic structures by trained people who can recognize it before a person's performance is exceptional
2 To investigate it, we study the development of skills in children
Main idea: Tài năng là đặc điểm bẩm sinh (nguồn gốc di truyền) → được người có chuyên môn nhận ra sớm, trước khi cá nhân đạt được trình độ biểu diễn xuất sắc.
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Step 04: Compare meaning with meaning
❌ A. who is aware of being set apart from other people:
--> Sai vì bài nói về người khác nhận ra tài năng, không phải bản thân người đó tự ý thức được điều đó → "identifiable by trained people"
❌ B. whose brain structure is unlike that of other people:
--> Sai vì bài nói “genetic structures”, không nói cụ thể về “brain structure” → "originates in genetic structures"
✅ C. who can perform extremely well in early childhood:
--> Đúng vì “identifiable … before a person has achieved exceptional levels of performance” → có thể được nhận ra sớm → biểu hiện năng lực vượt trội từ nhỏ.
❌ D. whose essential skills are more varied than those of ordinary people:
--> Sai vì bài không nói đến sự đa dạng kỹ năng, chỉ nói về nguồn gốc bẩm sinh và khả năng được nhận biết sớm → "originates in genetic structures"
As part of a marketing course, two marketing experts comment on a hypothetical case study involving TF, a fiction retail giant specializing in home furnishing. The experts give concrete solutions and advice to assist students.
Hypothetical case study:
TF became a retail success in the 1970s when it succeeded in spotting homeware trends and meeting the needs of its then trendy young customers. However, by 2004, the IF stores were failing and a rethink was clearly necessary. Tibal Fisher, TF’s founder and CEO, decided to change its focus under the new brand name of TVs Next stage. His aim was to recapture the now ageing customers that had given him his early success and target consumers aged 60+ with devices and gadgets specifically designed to assist them with the problems associated with ageing: mobile phones with screens that were easy to read; kitchen gadgets with comfortable grips; electronic devices that were easy to set and adjust. TF’s market research proved to be very positive, showing strong consumer support for the products.
In 2007, the stores were remodeled at a cost of US $40 million and the new brand was launched. Each store was made more comfortable and featured a coffee shop to help increase traffic - Tibal had predicted that if they could get customers into the stores then the products would sell themselves. However, by 2009 it was clear that the idea was a failure and the stores consistently remained empty. Customers complained that the new stores felt like a senior center and reminded them that they were growing old.
Feedback from expert
Expert 1: Donna Sturgess, global head of innovation, GlaxoSmithKline
The TReam’s customer research efforts are a classic case of missing the subconscious associations at work in consumers’ minds. Tibal and his executives looked only at surface attitudes. Since those attitudes make up a relatively small part of the total consumer response, the executives are clueless about the reason for the poor sales. It’s critical for companies to understand that every customer relates to a brand emotionally, and it’s those emotions that trigger - or block - purchases.
That's why we’ve focused on using emotional strategies behind branding for a number of years now. A great example is Alli (pronounced ‘ally’), a drug to aid weight loss. The product deals with a highly emotional issue, so in marketing it, we faced the same challenge that the new TF stores are facing: the very thought of buying the product reminds customers that they have problems they feel negatively. In the case of TF’s Next stage, the problems are age and infirmity. In the case of Alli, the problems are excessive weight and all consequences. There’s always a risk that consumers’ negative feelings will discourage them from starting or staying on a diet. So, after extensive market research, we took a number of steps to inject emotions into the whole process of using the product.
First we came up with a name that sounds like a helpful partner. We also aimed to make the container both beautiful and functional — something that didn’t just hold pills but could later be used to store diet guides and recipes. Traditional market research is unlikely to uncover ideas like this, so we use a wide variety of techniques. Even simple techniques such as one-on-one interviews, or ethnographical observation that involves going into people’s houses to examine their behaviour, can provide valuable data.
Expert 2: Alex Lee, president of OXO International, maker of OXO Good Grips household products
This retailer can get back on track by remembering a principle that applies to consumers. In general and those aged 60+ in particular: they’re attracted by brands they associate with the type of people they’d like to be - not the type they really are. That's why marketing campaigns for surf gear feature surfers, not the city dwellers who will wear the products while doing their shopping.
I was reminded of this principle few years ago when we wanted to find out how far we could apply our design philosophy of makings things easier to use in order to move from our core business, kitchen tools, into other products. We conducted what are known as focus groups, where participants were asked to look at photos of people and pick those they are perceived to be users and nonusers of our products. Consistently they picked people who looked fit as the sort who would use our products, and people who look old and boring as the sort who wouldn’t. Yet the participants, all owners of our products, looked a lot more like the later than the former.
Although the needs of elderly users and those with deteriorating vision or dexterity are very much taken into consideration when we develop new designs, we try to offer that appeal to 20-and-30-year-olds. We believe that referring to these products as helping tools would serve only to harm the brand in our customers’ eyes. That’s why our philosophy of universal design, which involves creating products that are comfortably useable by the largest possible range of people, is never explicitly stated as part of our marketing position.
We’ve found that market research does not need to be very sophisticated. For instance, we have conducted simple surveys in the lobby of our building offering free products in exchange for people’s opinions. Some may call this unscientific but we have uncovered great insights this way. Sometimes the most important signals come from an executive’s own instincts. In Tibal fisher’s case, this could have told him what his surveys and focus groups didn't: 60-plus-year-olds won't support a business that expects them to act their age.
Simplified: He targeted consumers aged 60+ with devices and gadgets designed to assist with problemsassociated with ageing
Main idea: TF nhắm tới khách hàng trên 60 tuổi → bán các thiết bị hỗ trợ giải quyết khó khăn do tuổi tác (ví dụ: điện thoại dễ đọc, đồ bếp dễ cầm).
Engineers are now turning to a different plan: to sap the water’s destructive strength by dispersing it into fields; forgotten lakes and floods plains. They are reviving river bends and marshes to curb the flow, and even plugging city drains to encourage floodwater to use other means to go underground. Back in the days when rivers took a winding path to the sea, floodwaters lost force and volume while meandering across flood plains and inland deltas, but today the water tends to have a direct passage to the sea. This means that, when it rains in the uplands, the water comes down all at once.
C. Worse, when the flood plains are closed off, the river’s flow downstream becomes more violent and uncontrollable; by turning complex river systems into the simple mechanics of a water pipe, engineers have often created danger where they promised safety. The Rhine, Europe’s most engineered river; is a good example. For a long time, engineers have erased its backwaters and cut it off from its plain. The aim was partly to improve navigation, and partly to speed floodwaters out of Alps and down to the North Sea. Now, when it rains in the Alps, the peak flows from several branches of the Rhine coincide where once they arrived separately, and with four-fifths of the Lower Rhine's flood plain barricaded off, the waters rise. The result is more frequent flooding and greater damage. The same thing has happened in the US on the Mississippi river, which drains the world’s second largest river catchment into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite some $7 billion spent over the last century on levees (embankments) the situation is growing worse.
D. Specialists in water control now say that a new approach is needed - one which takes the whole landscape into consideration. To help keep London’s feet dry, the UK Environment Agency is reflooding 10 square kilometres of the ancient flood plain of the River Thames outside Oxford. Nearer to London, it has spent £100 million creating new wetlands and a relief channel across 16 kilometres of flood plain. Similar ideas ate being tested in Austria, in one of Europe's largest river restorations to date. The engineers calculate that the restored flood plain of the Drava River can now store up to 10 million cubic metres of floodwater, and slow down storm surges coming out of the Alps by more than an hour, protecting towns not only in Austria, but as far downstream as Slovenia and Croatia.
E. The Dutch, for whom preventing floods is a matter of survival, have gone furthest. This nation, built largely on drained marshes and seabed, has had several severe shocks in the last two decades, when very large numbers of people have had to be evacuated. Since that time, the Dutch have broken one of their most enduring national stereotypes by allowing engineers to punch holes in dykes. They plan to return up to a sixth of the country to its former waterlogged state in order to better protect the rest.
F. Water use in cities also needs to change. At the moment, cities seem to create floods; they are concreted and paved so that rains flow quickly into rivers. A new breed of ‘soft engineers’ wants cities to porous, Berlin is one place where this is being done. Tough new rules for new developments mean that drains will be prevented from becoming overloaded after heavy rains. Architects of new urban buildings are diverting rainwater from the roofs for use in toilets and the irrigation of roof gardens, while water falling onto the ground is collected in ponds, or passes underground through porous paving. One high-tech urban development can store a sixth of its annual rainfall, and reuse most of the rest.
G. Could this be expanded to protect a whole city? The test case could Los Angeles. With non-porous surfaces covering 70% of the city, drainage is a huge challenge. Billions of dollars have been spent digging huge drains and concreting riverbeds, but many communities still flood regularly. Meanwhile this desert city ships water from hundreds of kilometres away to fill its taps and swimming pool. Los Angeles has recently launched a new scheme to utilise floodwater in the Sun Valley section of the city. The plan is to catch the rain that falls on thousands of driveways, parking lots and rooftops in the valley. Trees will soak up water from parking lots; houses and public buildings will capture roof water to irrigate gardens and parks, and road drains will empty into old gravel pits to recharge the city's underground water reserves. Result: less flooding and more water for the city. It may sound expensive, until we realise how much is spent trying to drain cities and protect areas from flooding, and bow little this method achieves.
Tough new rules
mean that drains will be prevented from becoming overloaded
Architects of new urban buildings
are diverting rainwater from the roofs for use in toilets and the irrigation of roof gardens
legislation ⇔ tough new rules
has forced ⇔ mean that + will be prevented (nghĩa là quy định “ép” hệ thống phải làm theo, không phải lựa chọn tự nguyện)
building designers ⇔ Architects of new urban buildings
improve water use ⇔ diverting rainwater… for use in toilets / irrigation (= dùng nước mưa thay cho nước sạch cho các mục đích phù hợp)
Does that class of people acknowledged to be musical experts just have more of the same basic skills we are all endowed with, or do they have a set of abilities - or neural structures - that are totally different from those of the rest of us? Are high levels of musical achievement simply the result of training and practice, or are they based on innate brain structure - what we refer to as ‘talent’? Talent can be defined as something that originates in genetic structures and that is identifiable by trained people who can recognize its existence before a person has achieved exceptional levels of performance. The emphasis on early identification means that to investigate it, we study the development of skills in children.
It is evident that some children acquire skills more rapidly than others: the age of onset for walking and talking varies widely, even between children in the same household. There may be genetic factors at work, but these are closely linked with other factors - with a presumably environmental component - such as motivation and family dynamics. Similar factors can influence musical development and can mask the contribution of genetics to musical ability.
Brain studies, so far, haven’t been of much use in sorting out the issues. Gottfried Schlaug at Harvard collected brain scans of individuals with absolute pitch* (AP) and showed that a region in the brain called the planum temporale is larger in these people than in others. This suggests that the planum is involved in AP, but it’s not clear if it starts out larger in people who eventually acquire AP, or if the acquisition of AP makes the planum increase in size.
Results of research into the areas of the brain involved in skilled motor movement are more conclusive. Studies of violin players have shown that the region of the brain responsible for controlling the movement of the left hand (the hand that requires greater precision in violin playing) increases in size as a result of practice. We do not know yet if the propensity for increase pre-exists in some people, not others.
The evidence against talent comes from research on how much training the experts do. Like experts in mathematics, chess, or sports, experts in music require lengthy periods of instruction and practice. In several studies, the very best music students were found to have practiced more than twice as much as the others. In another study, students were secretly divided into two groups based on teachers’ perceptions of their talent. Several years later, it was found that the students who achieved the highest performance ratings had practiced the most, irrespective of which talent group they had been assigned to, suggesting that practice does not merely correlate with achievement, but causes it.
Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, approaches the topic of musical expertise as a general problem in cognitive psychology. He takes as a starting point the assumption that there are certain issues involved in becoming an expert at anything; that we can learn about musical expertise by studying expert chess players, athletes, artists, mathematicians, as well as the musicians themselves. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Someone would do this amount of practice if they practiced, for example, roughly 20 hours a week for ten years. Of course, this does not address why some people do not seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no-one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
The ten-thousand-hour theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something, the stronger the memory/learning trace for that experience becomes. Although people differ in how long it takes them to consolidate information neutrally, it remains true that increased practice leads to a greater number of neural traces, which create stronger memory representation.
The classic rebuttal to this theory goes something like this: ‘What about Mozart? I hear that he composed his first symphony at the age of four!’ First, there is a factual error here: Mozart did not write it until he was eight. Still, this is unusual, to say the least. However, this early work received little acclaim and was not performed very often. In fact, the only reason we know about it is because the child who wrote it grew up to become Mozart. And Mozart had an expert teacher in his father, who was renowned as a teacher of musicians all over Europe. We do not know how much Mozart practiced, but if he started at age two and worked thirty-two hours a week (quite possible, given that his father was a stern taskmaster) he would have made his ten thousand hours by the time he composed his first symphony. This does not mean that there are no genetic factors involved in Mozart’s greatness, but that inborn traits may not be the only cause.
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individuals with absolute pitch*: people who can identify or sing any musical note correctly without help
by trained people
who can recognize it before a person's performance is exceptional
