2015年经济类联考英语阅读练习及答案13

考研网

It is said that the public and Congressional concern about deceptive (欺骗性的)
packaging rumpus (喧嚣) started because Senator Hart discovered that the boxes of
cereals consumed by him, Mrs. Hart, and their children were becoming higher and
narrower, with a decline of net weight from 12 to 10-1/2 ounces, without any
reduction in price. There were still twelve biscuits, but they had been reduced
in size. Later, the Senator rightly complained of a store- bought pie in a
handsomely illustrated box that pictured, in a single slice, almost as many
cherries as there were in the whole pie. The manufacturer who increases the
unit
    price of his product by changing his package size to lower the quantity
delivered can, without undue hardship, put his product into boxes, bags, and
tins that will contain even 4-ounce, 8-ounce, one-pound, two-pound quantities of
breakfast foods, cake mixes, etc. A study of drugstore (杂货店) and supermarket
shelves will convince any observer that all possible sizes and shapes of boxes,
jars, bottles, and tins are in use at the same time, and, as the package
journals show, week by week, there is never any hesitation in introducing a new
size and shape of box or bottle when it aids in product differentiation. The
producers of packaged products argue strongly against changing sizes of packages
to contain even weights and volumes, but no one in the trade comments
unfavorably on the huge costs incurred by endless changes of package sizes,
materials, shape, art work, and net weights that are used for improving a
product's market position.
    When a packaging expert explained that he was able to multiply the price of
hard sweets by 2.5, from $1 to $ 2.50 by changing to a fancy jar, or that he had
made a 5-ounce bottle look as though it held 8 ounces, he was in effect telling
the public that packaging can be a very expensive luxury. It evidently does come
high, when an average family pays about $ 200 a year for bottles, cans, boxes,
jars and other containers, most of which can't be used for anything but stuffing
the garbage can.