1 . Interactive television advertising, which allows viewers to use their remote controls to click on advertisements, has been pushed for years. Nearly a decade ago it was predicted that viewers of Friends, a popular situation comedy, would soon be able to purchase a sweater like Jennifer Aniston’s with a few taps on their remote control. “It’s been the year of interactive television advertising for the last ten or twelve years,” says Colin Dixon of a digital-media consultancy.

So the news that Cablevision, an American cable company, was rolling out interactive advertisements to all its customers on October 6th was greeted with some skepticism.     1     Cablevision 8 hopes to allow customers to buy things with their remote controls early next year.

Television advertising could do with a boost. Spending fell by 10% in the first half of the year.     2     Some are turning to the Internet, which is cheaper and offers concrete measurements like click-through rates — especially important at a time when marketing budgets are tight. With the launch of interactive advertising, “many of the dollars that went to the Internet will come back to the TV,” says David Kline of Cablevision. Or so the industry hopes.

In theory, interactive advertising can engage viewers in a way that 30-second spots do not. Unilever recently ran an interactive campaign for its Axe deodorant (除臭剂), which kept viewers engaged for more than three minutes on average.

    3     Magna, an advertising agency, reckons it will be worth about $138 million this year. That falls far short of the billions of dollars people once expected it to generate. But DirecTV, Comcast and Time Warner Cable have all invested in it. A new effort led by Canoe Ventures, a coalition of leading cable providers, aims to make interactive advertising available across America later this year. BrightLine iTV, which designs and sells interactive ads, says interest has surged: it expects its revenues almost to triple this year. BSkyB, Britain’s biggest satellite-television service, already provides 9 million customers with interactive ads.

    4     Click-through rates have been high so far (around 3%—4%, compared with less than 0.3% online), but that may be a result of the novelty. Interactive ads and viewers might not go well together.

A．The popularization of digital video recorders has caused advertisers to worry that their commercials will be skipped.

B．But it seems that less viewers are attracted to the new version.

C．During commercials, an overlay will appear at the bottom of the screen, prompting viewers to press a button to request a free sample or order a catalogue.

D．The amount spent on interactive advertising on television is still small.

E．What’s more, it may not be a wise choice for advertisers to keep adding more new elements.

F．Yet there are doubts whether people watching television, a “lean back” medium, crave interaction.

4 . Directions: Read the following passage. Fill in each blank with a proper sentence given in the box. Each sentence can be used only once. Note that there are two more sentences than you need.

In the radio drama “Nau em Taim” aired in Papua New Guinea, a widowed father takes up dynamite(炸药) fishing—profitable but disastrous for the reef. Then he meets a dashing marine scientist who warns him off. The idea is that by the end of the drama,   both he—and the listeners—will give up dynamite for sustainable fishing.

The show’s producer, the Population Media Center (PMC) in Vermont, has been a pioneer of programmes with the goal of fostering development.     1     In Vietnam Khat Vong Song uses radio drama to teach its listeners about domestic violence. In Kenya Mediae promotes civil rights with a television soap called “Makutano Junction”.

Evidence that radio and television soaps can change behaviour was first spotted in the 1970s.     2     About twenty years later, economists at the Inter-American Development Bank, found that Brazilians receiving Globo, a television network promoting modern family concepts, had fewer children. Another follow-up study discovered that, as cable television spread, the birth rate in certain rural area dropped.

Some argue that the influence was because couch potatoes were less likely to make babies. But research in Ethiopia showed that dramas can have a direct effect. Inquiries about ways to reduce birth rates rose by 157% among married women who listened to the soap operas “Yeken Kignet” and “Dhimbibba”.     3       Male listeners sought tests for HIV/AIDS four times as much as male non-listeners.

“The results are the best when people identify with characters,” says Betty Oala of the PMC. This is why the organisation does extensive research, takes on local writers and uses native languages.

Not only are soaps effective, but they are also cheap. Radio programmes can cost as little as three cents to reach a listener in Africa.     4     Although producers do not hide their purposes many scholars think that there could be a fight over morals and the aimful results of soap dramas. A drop in birth rates may seem like good news to a woman activist, but bad to a religious worker.

A．The influence is witnessed for the opposite gender as well.

B．Awareness for health is given due attention among different age groups.

C．Africa has greatly increased ways of broadcasting.

D．But solid academic research was lacking for quite a long time.

E．Yet trying to influence the locals can be debatable.

F．But other organizations have increasingly followed suit.