Answers For [Complete IELTS 6.5 - 7.5] - Talking on the radio about colours

Narrator: You will hear someone talking on the radio about colours.

Presenter: Well it's a 'colourful' start to the day on DB Radio. Kathy, what have you got to tell us?

Kathy: Thanks, Briony. I thought I'd talk about two areas today where colour plays a huge role in our lives - and they are food and fashion. So, let's start with food and more specifically, food colouring.

In many parts of the world today, people like the food they purchase to be the 'right' colour. 1So if we buy tinned or canned vegetables, such as green peas, it's highly likely that the contents have been enhanced through the use of colouring agents. Peas are naturally green, you might say. But they may not be green all over or they may not be the most pleasing shade of green. So a natural additive or two can quickly sort that out. Just as it can the perfectly minty green ice cream that we buy our children.

Children are a big market for food and are easily tempted by colour. 2Breakfast cereals, for instance, that come in various shades of brown are often altered using caramel, a natural brown food colouring derived from caramelised sugar. This also gives the cereals a shiny, mouth-watering appeal which is hugely tempting for consumers.

In fact, natural food colouring goes back a long way. One of the oldest or perhaps the most well-known natural food colours - is 3red or 'cochineal', named after the insects used to make it Aztec Indians created a crimson dye from the bodies of crushed beetles. 3Producing cochineal is very costly, so it was unpopular with consumers for some years. But health scares linking artificial red dyes to cancer have meant that more shoppers are buying cochineal again.

Now, there's one food colour that manufacturers use with a certain amount of caution and that's blue. Our ancestors believed that food this colour was dangerous. 4If you think about it. very few naturally occurring foods are blue, and there is little demand for the colouring. In fact, if you're trying to lose weight. experts suggest that you put your food on a blue plate. It's almost guaranteed to kill your appetite.

(pause)

OK, let's look at another area where colour is a key issue. 5If you say you've bought something new to wear, often the first question people will ask is 'What colour is it?'. Yet the answer doesn't necessarily indicate that the colour was your preferred choice. As consumers, we have to balance how we feel in certain colours with what is fashionable at the time. 5You think you've suddenly developed a desire to wear orange, whereas, in fact, the shops are full of it, and you've ended up buying an orange shirt - that may or may not suit you - simply because it's this season's colour'. Well, 6the interesting thing here is that 'colourists. As they're called in the business, have to look ahead and say what colour models will be wearing in fashion shows several years in advance. To get this right, they have to consider now long it will take to produce the cloth dyes, they have to set up deals with suppliers, and bear in mind the constant changes in consumer taste. So what may seem to be this season's colour has actually been agreed years before.

7So what do we think about the colours we wear? Like everything, our tastes alter with age. In general, though, we think that black makes people look and feel thinner, while red does the opposite: white goes with everything, whereas yellow is harder to match, and nothing alters the fact that there are certain colours that we never feel comfortable wearing.

And finally - 8whether it's food or fashion, anyone in the business field knows that it isn't enough to get a product the right colour. Even the packaging has to be carefully designed in order to maximise sales. It's no good, for instance, wrapping an item in brown paper if you want it to stand out. Much better to go for eye-catching colours or, in fact, 9in today's world, green has become very popular because it promotes the view that the company cares about the environment. In addition to their products, businesses also have to think about the people who come up with the ideas. If you surround your workers with drab colours, they'll come up with equally dull ideas. This isn't rocket science. We used to associate red with creativity in business, but it turns out - 10according to a recent study -that blue is a much better stimulus for creative thought. So the colour's not all bad!