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TEXT G
First read the question.
53. In the passage the author's attitude towards the subject under discussion is ____.
A. factual.
B. critical.
C. favorable.
D. ambiguous.
Read the text quickly and then answer the question.
With increasing prosperity, Western European youth is having a fling that is creating distinctive consumer and cultural patterns.
The result has been the increasing emergence in Europe of that phenomenon well known in America as the "youth market." This is a market in which enterprising businesses cater to the demands of teenagers and older youths in all their rock mania and pop-art forms.
In Western Europe, the youth market may appropriately be said to be in its infancy. In some countries such as Britain, West Germany and France, it is more advanced than in others. Some manifestations of the market, chiefly sociological, have been recorded, but it is only just beginning to be the subject of organized consumer research and promotion.
Characteristics of the evolving European youth market indicate dissimilarities as well as similarities to the American youth market.
The similarities:
The market's basis is essentially the same -- more spending power and freedom to use it in the hands of teenagers and older youth. Young consumers also make up an increasingly high proportion of the population.
As in the United States, youthful tastes in Europe extend over a similar range of products -- records and record players, transistor radios, leather jackets and "wayout," extravagantly styled clothing, cosmetics and soft drinks. Generally it now is difficult to tell in which direction trans-Atlantic teenage influences are flowing.
Also, a pattern of conformity dominates European youth as in this country, though in Britain the object is to wear clothes that "make the wearer stand out," but also make him "in," such as tight trousers and precisely tailored jackets.
Worship and emulation of "idols" in the entertainment field, especially the "pop" singers and other performers is pervasive. There is also the same exuberance and unpredictability in sudden fad switches. In Paris, buyers of stores catering to the youth market carefully watch what dress is being worn by a popular television teenage singer to be ready for a sudden demand for copies. In Stockholm other followers of teenage fads call the youth market "attractive but irrational."
The most obvious differences between the youth market in Europe and that in the United States is in size. In terms of volume and variety of sales, the market in Europe is only a shadow of its American counterpart, but it is a growing shadow.
But there are also these important dissimilarities generally with the American youth market:
In the European youth market, unlike that of the United States, it is the working youth who provides the bulk of purchasing power.
On the average, the school-finishing age still tends to be 14 years. This is the maximum age to which compulsory education extends, and with Europe's industrial manpower shortage, thousands of teenage youths may soon attain incomes equal in many cases to that of their fathers.
Although, because of general prosperity, European youths are beginning to continue school studies beyond the compulsory maximum age, they do not receive anything like the pocket money or "allowances" of American teenagers. The European average is about '5 to '10 a month.
Working youth, consequently, are the big spenders in the European youth market, but they also have less leisure than those staying on at school, who in turn have less buying power.
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