With diligent practise, the IELTS Reading Module can be the highest score category. All you need to do is to comprehend the most effective techniques for approaching and responding to the various question kinds by practising passages like How Consumers Decide Reading Answers.

The Academic Reading Answers of How Consumers Decide is a reading passage that appeared in an IELTS test. Ideally, you should not spend more than 20 minutes on a passage. Let’s see how easy this passage is for you and if you’re able to make it in 20 minutes. If not, try more IELTS reading practice tests from IELTSMaterial.com.

There are 13 questions in total in the Reading Answers of How Consumers Decide. You must understand the subject, look up key terms in the IELTS reading passages, and then respond in line with the instructions.

Reading Passage

How Consumers Decide

Professor John Maule from the University of Leeds describes new research into the way that consumers choose a product.

Consumers are creatures of habit: they buy the same products time and time again, and such is their familiarity with big brands and the colours and logos that represent them, that they can register a brand they like with barely any conscious thought process. The packaging of consumer products is, therefore, a crucial vehicle for delivering the brand and the product into our shopping baskets.

Having said this, understanding how consumers make decisions, and the crucial role of packaging in this process has been a neglected area of research so far. This is surprising given that organisations invest huge amounts of money in developing packaging that they believe is effective – especially at the retail level. Our Centre for Decision Research at Leeds University’s Business School, in collaboration with Faraday Packaging, is now undertaking work in this area. It has already led to some important findings that challenge the ways in which organisations think about consumer choice.

The research has focused on two fundamental types of thinking. On the one hand, there’s ‘heuristic processing’, which involves very shallow thought and is based on very simple rules: 1) buy what you recognize, 2) choose what you did last time, or 3) choose what a trusted source suggests. This requires comparatively little effort, and involves looking at – and thinking about – only a small amount of the product information and packaging. One can do this with little or no conscious thought.

On the other hand, ‘systematic processing’ involves much deeper levels of thought. When people choose goods in this way, they engage in quite detailed analytical thinking – taking account of the product information, including its price, its perceived quality and so on. This form of thinking, which is both analytical and conscious, involves much more mental effort.

The role of packaging is likely to be very different for each of these types of decision making. Under heuristic processing, for example, consumers may simply need to be able to distinguish the pack from those of competitors since they are choosing on the basis of what they usually do. Under these circumstances, the simple perceptual features of the pack may be critical – so that we can quickly discriminate what we choose from the other products on offer. Under systematic processing, however, product-related information may be more important, so the pack has to provide this in an easily identifiable form.

Questions 1-6

• Little research has been done on the link between packaging and consumers choosing a product.
• 2 A person who buys what another person recommends is using heuristic thinking.
• 3 Heuristic processing requires more energy than systematic processing.
• 4 The concept of heuristic processing was thought up by Dr Maule’s team.
• A consumer who considers how much a product costs, is using systematic processing.
• 6 For heuristic processing, packaging must be similar to other products.

Answers for How Consumers Decide Reading Answers with Location and Explanation

• Answer: True
  • Question type: True/False/Not Given
  • Answer location: Paragraph 2, Line 1
  • Answer explanation: In the given location, it is mentioned that “Having said this, understanding how consumers make decisions, and the crucial role of packaging in this process has been a neglected area of research so far.”. This means that there has been less research on the link between the important (crucial) role of packaging and consumers choosing a product (make decisions) and this area has been neglected. As the statement agrees with the information, the answer is True.

• Answer: False
  • Question type: True/False/Not Given
  • Answer location: Paragraph 3, Line 3 & Paragraph 4, line 3
  • Answer explanation: In the cited location, it is stated that “This requires comparatively little effort, and involves looking at – and thinking about – only a small amount of the product information and packaging…This form of thinking, which is both analytical and conscious, involves much more mental effort.”. It can be concluded that while heuristic processing is a shallow process and requires comparatively little effort, systematic processing takes more mental effort. As the statement contradicts the information, the answer is False.

• Answer: Not Given
  • Question type: True/False/Not Given
  • Answer location: N.A.
  • Answer explanation: As there is no mention of whether Dr Maule’s team had thought of the concept of heuristic processing, the answer is Not Given.

• Answer: True
  • Question type: True/False/Not Given
  • Answer location: Paragraph 4, Line 2
  • Answer explanation: In the cited paragraph, it is given “When people choose goods in this way, they engage in quite detailed analytical thinking – taking account of the product information, including its price, its perceived quality and so on.”. It can be deduced that systematic thinking takes place when a consumer takes into the price, quality and other product information. As the statement agrees with the information, the answer is True.