A. Read and translate the text. 1 One can buy anything in America, but it takes a great deal of mastery to sell anything there.

1 One can buy anything in America, but it takes a great deal of mastery to sell anything there.

2 Millions of people are engaged in promoting[40] products (goods and services).There are millions of methods to do it. The most primitive one is to deliver goods to a shop and wait until they are sold out (similarly, to open a service bureau and wait for customers). In this case, the main task is to get people into the shop and make them interested[41] in what you offer.

3 To attract customers, some shops organize regular sales at discount prices. This does not mean that the goods sold at a discount are of inferior quality. The idea is to woo customers to the shops promising cheaper goods and wait for them to buy goods at regular prices as they do their shopping. Sometimes shops run out of[42] the discount goods. In this case, one can ask shop assistant to issue a rain-check[43].

4 To get a customer into the shop, Americans never stop short of^[44] great spending. First and foremost the customer has to get to know new goods on the market. Free-of-charge distribution of goods serves the purpose. These are samples of new goods which the producer companies wanted the customers to get acquainted with. This is one type of advertising.

5 Another type is showing a product in action. Supposing you got a call from a company selling vacuum cleaners with a suggestion that you have a look at their new model. You agreed to see it and in the evening of the same day a woman comes to your place and cleans half the house. Of course, you like the vacuum cleaner.

6 Another way of advertising is distribution of gifts. From time to time you receive invitations to visit car salons, for example. Your time to get there and test drive a new car is compensated by a gift, such as a portable radio, a beauty set, a turner kit, etc.

7 Selling by catalogue is very popular. Every day you are mailed several catalogues. The most popular of them come in the form of colourful big booklets containing pictures of goods, their regular price, the price in the shop belonging to the firm, and the price of selling by mail. Big companies may also offer you credit on the goods they sell.

8 The art of selling is for the persistent. Without persistent sellers, America would not be what it is now.

9 Commercials, especially television ones, are very expensive and not all companies can afford them. Usually the sellers of similar goods pool their funds to buy one ad. Often producers pay for ads. Advertising expenditure in the US is comparable to the budgets of some countries. However, it is not for nothing that^[45] society undertakes such spending. It helps move goods more quickly and efficiently. This means that the funds spent on manufacture of goods circulate more quickly, which, in turn, accelerates economic growth.

B. Give Russian equivalents to the following words and phrases:

a great deal of mastery, are engaged in promoting, to attract customers, sale, a discount price, to be of an inferior/superior quality, at a regular price, to promise, a sample, to serve the purpose, to offer, suggestion, a gift, portable radio, a set, a kit, to mail, persistent, expensive, cheap, ad, comparable, to accelerate.

C. Find in the text English equivalents to the following phrases:

точно так же, прежде всего, взглянуть на, время от времени, объединять средства, может позволить себе, их можно сравнить с, идти на такие расходы.

D. Find in the text phrases containing “to get” and memorize different meanings of the verb.

E. Find in the text phrasal verbs which mean: никогда не останавливаться перед, истощить запас, распродавать, привлекать/заинтересовать and use them in the sentences of your own.