Question

5. Write about 100 to 150 words on the following topic. Who do you think benefits more from discount shopping, customers or shops? Discuss. (Puntuación máxima: 3 puntos). PRUEBA SELECTIVIDAD MADRID CONVOCATORIA JUN 2012-2013 INGLES. January Sales People who are addicted to shopping are nowadays called shopaholics. For these shopaholics, the post-Christmas period means only one thing - sales! Across the country, prices are reduced on clothing, electronics, home furnishings and more, but London is the place for serious shopping, and you can certainly pick up some amazing bargains. The sales start on Boxing Day, 26th December, and continue for the month of January, but the keenest bargain hunters get there early to be first through the doors. In Oxford Street queues form outside shops before pre-dawn openings for the start of their sales. At Brent Cross, in north London, hundreds of people queue at 3:30 am for the “Next” clothing store’s sale which begins at 4 am. Some hardy individuals even camp outside the shops to be first in the line. Consumers who go to the shops are rewarded with discounts of up to 80%, as department stores join the sales frenzy. The shops are packed with people moving around as the sales get into full swing, with more than half a million people converging on London’s West End. Some people are taking their partners shopping with them and buying their Christmas presents in the sale - a practical but unromantic way of making sure you get the gift you really want. For a less exciting but less stressful shopping experience, online retailers also participate in the January sales of their own. The most organised of all are those who are already doing their present shopping for next Christmas, in the January sales!

Answer 1

5. Write about 100 to 150 words on the following topic. Who do you think benefits more from discount shopping, customers or shops? Discuss. 


When  we talk about holiday discount shopping, like Black Friday or January Sales, in my opinion, stores and big franchises benefit more from the sales they make than the customers who take advantage of them. When you create a culture of consumerism, you also create the false need for certain products. When sales are advertised, they create a compulsive need in the consumer's brain to get whatever has a discount just for the fact that it is cheaper, not because they need it. So stores take advantage of that and when they sell so much, they end up getting more revenue than when they sell their products at normal prices.


PRUEBA SELECTIVIDAD MADRID CONVOCATORIA JUN 2012-2013 INGLÉS