Difficulty: Easy
Correct Answer: awareness
Explanation:
Introduction / Context:
This question checks your understanding of collocations and word choice in business and marketing contexts. The sentence talks about what corporates, that is large companies, should do regarding duplicate or counterfeit products in the market. When we speak about consumers and how much they know about a certain problem, we usually talk about their level of awareness. The goal is to choose the noun that naturally fits with consumer and with the idea of increasing knowledge about fake products.
Given Data / Assumptions:
Concept / Approach:
The key concept here is collocation, which means typical word combinations in natural English. We frequently say consumer awareness when we talk about how informed customers are about issues like safety, authenticity, or legal rights. While information is also related to knowledge, the common phrase is increase consumer awareness, not increase consumer information. Habits refers to behaviour patterns such as buying habits and does not fit logically after increase consumer in this context. Satisfaction relates to how happy customers are with a product or service, not to how much they know about duplicate products.
Step-by-Step Solution:
Step 1: Read the sentence with each option inserted. Start with information: increase consumer information about duplicate products sounds slightly awkward, because we usually talk about providing information rather than increasing consumer information.
Step 2: Try habits: increase consumer habits about duplicate products does not make sense, because habits are not something that are increased in this way.
Step 3: Try awareness: increase consumer awareness about duplicate products is a very common and natural phrase in marketing, advertising, and consumer law.
Step 4: Try satisfaction: increase consumer satisfaction about duplicate products is illogical, because no company wants consumers to be satisfied with fake goods. The entire idea conflicts with the problem described.
Step 5: Since awareness produces the only clear and meaningful sentence, awareness is the correct answer.
Verification / Alternative check:
You can cross check this by recalling phrases from news articles and consumer campaigns, which often say raising consumer awareness about counterfeit goods or increasing consumer awareness of their rights. This confirms that awareness is the natural collocate with consumer in this type of sentence, and that the other options do not match the usual pattern of professional English usage.
Why Other Options Are Wrong:
information is related to knowledge, but the phrase increase consumer information is not standard and sounds clumsy, so it is not the best fit.
habits refer to behaviour, such as spending habits, and cannot be increased about duplicate products in a natural way.
satisfaction concerns how pleased customers are with genuine products or services, not with duplicate products, so it contradicts the logic of the sentence.
Common Pitfalls:
A frequent trap in such questions is to choose a word that seems related in meaning without considering common phrases and collocations. Learners may also be tempted by information because it is close to knowledge, but they forget to read the full phrase and ask whether native speakers actually say increase consumer information. Building awareness of real world usage by reading articles on marketing, economics, and consumer rights can help reinforce correct collocations such as consumer awareness, consumer loyalty, and consumer satisfaction.
Final Answer:
The most appropriate collocation is increase consumer awareness about duplicate products, so the correct answer is awareness.
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