Hello! I’m Sergi, it’s the first time I write here, I’m taking the test on Saturday and I would like to know your opinion about my essays. I had 20 minutes to do this one, with a stopwatch.
There was a reading passage, then a lecture, and I had to explain the point of view of the lecturer (150-225 words).
Super Bowl
The lecturer points out different arguments to describe and protest how music, advertisments and pop culture have overshadowed one of the greatests sport events in the world: the Super Bowl. She is worried about that, and she doesn’t understand how a company can waste so much money in advertisments.
On the other hand, the author of the passage points that for many companies is worth to spend huge quantities of money in a single-day-advertisment because the Super Bowl is an oportunity to reach more people than usual. Thereby, enterprises try to perform the cleverest and funniest advertisment during the halftime thus people is going to talk about them during the next week. This is just the point that the lecturer can’t stand. In her opinion, the sport game should never be overshadowed by the publicity and music videos, because the event is not meant for that. Besides, she can’t imagine how investing bilions of dollars can be benefitial. However, the author of the passage insists that this show gives an oportunity for unknown brands to share space with the most important companies of the world, and gives the example of the dotcom companies boom during the 2000 Super Bowl.
Concludig, the lecturer claims that most of the people remember the performance instead of the game in the long run, and mention that whereas some fans can’t even recall which players were on the field, everybody know that dancers such as Justin Timberlake or Janet Jackson were performing on it.
Thank you!
PS: Is there a problem if you write 250 words - as in this case - when you’ve been asked to write 150-225 words?
TOEFL listening lectures: A university lecture by a professor of American History