Integrated Essay: Antismoking campaigns

[Murcho_Murev]

Hi, Kitos. This is an integrated essay on quite a commonplace topic.
Thank you in advance for yor time and review.
There it is.

READING
Smoking prevention campaigns, particularly those aimed at young people, have met with significant success all around the country. The current campaign to prevent tobacco use among teens in our own state, for example, has had a measurable positive impact. This program includes an advertising campaign, the implementa¬tion of no-smoking policies for places frequented by teens, and various community antismoking events. Close to 25% of teens surveyed said that they had participated in one of these events during the past year. More significantly, over 50% reported having seen the antismoking ads. The survey also found that those who had seen the ads were much less likely to start smoking than those who had not seen any of the antismoking ads. The public health department plans to continue and expand the campaign so as to reach more young people throughout the state. Clearly, such campaigns can go a long way toward addressing public health issues.

LECTURE
How effective are public health campaigns? They must be evaluated with care because initial results can be deceptive. Evaluations of the effectiveness of a public health campaign too often take place close to the end of die campaign only. To truly understand the impact a public health campaign may -or may not - have had, we have to look at where we stand several months after the campaign has ended. Unfortunately, this piece is often neglected.
To illustrate the point, let’s take a look at a recent campaign to reduce smoking among teens in the Midwestern region. Teens in this area were inundated with anti-smoking information for the better part of a year. There were ads all over the local communities, representatives went into high schools to offer workshops, literature was distributed, antismoking clubs were formed, in short, all the usual activities of a campaign of this sort were instigated. Surveys taken near the end of this campaign, in March of last year, showed that well over half of those surveyed were aware of the campaign. This means they reported that they had seen the ads, participated in workshops, attended a meeting and so on. At the same time, forty percent of those surveyed reported that they were unlikely to try smoking in die next year. It sounds like a great success, doesn’t it? Just three months after the campaign ended, however, this last figure changed dramatically. At the end of June, fifty-eight percent of survey participants reported that they were “very likely” to smoke in the next year. At the same time, less than thirty percent reported awareness of the antismoking campaign, so it seems a number of them had already forgotten the ads they had seen just a few months earlier.
This information puts the whole effort in a completely different light. Naturally, no public health official likes to see such poor numbers resulting from such a huge effort. If we truly aim for effectiveness in our public health work, however, we need to take an honest look at all the figures.

Source: Writing for the TOEFL iBT, Barron, 3rd edition

The reading states that smoke prevention campaigns have reasonable success, but the lecturer says that these results are not correct, because they are investigated right after the end of the campaigns.
The reading asserts that the current antismoking campaign has a good effect. There was a survey, showing that 25% of the people participated and 50% have seen the ads. These who saw the ads said that they would probably not start smoking.
The lecturer, on the other hand, claims that to understand the real effect of the campaign, it should be investigated several months after its end. There was a recent campaign in Middle-West region, including all the usual activities, like ads, workshops and antismoking clubs. At the end of the campaign, a survey showed that half of the surveyed were aware of the campaign and they participated or saw the ads. Furthermore, 50 percent of the surveyed said that they would not start smoking next year.
But the survey, made three months after the campaign, found that 58 percent of the teens were very likely to try smoking next year and less than 30 percent of the surveyed said that they were aware for this antismoking campaign. The lecturer tells that this shows that big part of the teens has forgotten for few months and this questions the effectiveness of these campaigns.

TOEFL listening discussions: Two seminar classmates discussing their classwork

[Kitosdad]

@Murcho_Murev

Hi, Kitos. This is an integrated essay on quite a commonplace topic.
Thank you in advance for yor time and review.
There it is.

READING
Smoking prevention campaigns, particularly those aimed at young people, have met with significant success all around the country. The current campaign to prevent tobacco use among teens in our own state for example, has had a measurable positive impact. This program includes an advertising campaign, the implementation of no-smoking policies for places frequented by teens, and various community anti-smoking events. Close to 25% of teens surveyed said that they had participated in one of these events during the past year. More significantly, over 50% reported having seen the anti-smoking ads. The survey also found that those who had seen the ads were much less likely to start smoking than those who had not seen any of the anti-smoking ads. The public health department plans to continue and expand the campaign so as to reach more young people throughout the state. Clearly, such campaigns can go a long way toward addressing public health issues.

LECTURE
How effective are public health campaigns? They must be evaluated with care because initial results can be deceptive. Evaluations of the effectiveness of a public health campaign too often take place close to the end of die campaign only. To truly understand the impact a public health campaign may -or may not - have had, we have to look at where we stand several months after the campaign has ended. Unfortunately, this piece is often neglected.
To illustrate the point, let’s take a look at a recent campaign to reduce smoking among teens in the Midwestern region. Teens in this area were inundated with anti-smoking information for the better part of a year. There were ads all over the local communities, representatives went into high schools to offer workshops, literature was distributed, antismoking clubs were formed, in short, all the usual activities of a campaign of this sort were instigated. Surveys taken near the end of this campaign, in March of last year, showed that well over half of those surveyed were aware of the campaign. This means they reported that they had seen the ads, participated in workshops, attended a meeting and so on. At the same time, forty percent of those surveyed reported that they were unlikely to try smoking in die next year. It sounds like a great success, doesn’t it? Just three months after the campaign ended, however, this last figure changed dramatically. At the end of June, fifty-eight percent of survey participants reported that they were “very likely” to smoke in the next year. At the same time, less than thirty percent reported awareness of the antismoking campaign, so it seems a number of them had already forgotten the ads they had seen just a few months earlier.
This information puts the whole effort in a completely different light. Naturally, no public health official likes to see such poor numbers resulting from such a huge effort. If we truly aim for effectiveness in our public health work, however, we need to take an honest look at all the figures.

Source: Writing for the TOEFL iBT, Barron, 3rd edition

The reading states that smoke prevention campaigns are having reasonable success, but the lecturer says that these results are not correct, because they are investigated right after the end of the campaigns.
The reading asserts that the current anti-smoking campaign has a good effect. There was a survey, showing that 25% of the people participated in the event and 50% have seen the ads. Those who saw the ads said that they would probably not start smoking.
The lecturer, on the other hand, claims that to understand the real effect of the campaign, it should be investigated several months after its end. There was a recent campaign in the Middle-West region, including all the usual activities, like ads, workshops and anti-smoking clubs. At the end of the campaign, a survey showed that half of those surveyed were aware of the campaign and they had participated in the event or had or seen the ads. Furthermore, 50 percent of those surveyed said that they would not start smoking next year.
However, a survey, made three months after the campaign, found that 58 percent of the teens were very likely to try smoking next year, and less than 30 percent of those surveyed said that they were aware of this anti-smoking campaign. The lecturer tells that this shows that a big part of the teens has forgotten the campaign after a few months and this questions the effectiveness of these campaigns.

Pretty good MM. Keep reading.

Kitos. 8.5/10