[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"external-lt-1200":3},{"payload":4,"id":45,"user":46,"level":52,"course":53,"activity":54,"activity_slug":55,"title":6,"topic":56,"tone":57,"stats":58,"created":60,"score":61,"is_favorite":62,"public":63,"is_external":62},{"text":5,"title":6,"answers":7,"questions":38},"On a rainy Tuesday, I watched the owner of a small café refresh her phone as if it were a heart monitor. She wasn’t waiting for a message from a friend; she was waiting for strangers to judge her flat whites. One new review, one extra star, and the place might fill up after lunch. One angry paragraph, and the afternoon could be painfully quiet. For better or worse, online reviews have become a public scoreboard for businesses that used to rely mainly on regular customers and word of mouth.\n\nThe power of reviews is easy to explain: they reduce uncertainty. If you are choosing between two hairdressers you’ve never tried, it feels safer to pick the one with 4.7 stars and recent comments praising the staff. For businesses, that “feels safer” moment can translate into real money. A strong rating often pushes a company higher in search results, which means more clicks, more bookings, and more sales. Some owners now treat their review page like a shop window, checking it daily and responding as carefully as they would to a complaint made in person.\n\nHowever, the system can be unfairly harsh. A single bad experience, described in detail, may be read by thousands of potential customers who never hear the business’s side of the story. People also tend to write reviews when they feel strongly, especially when they are disappointed. This can create a distorted picture: a restaurant that serves hundreds of happy diners might still look “problematic” online because only a small, angry group bothered to post. The result is that some businesses feel they are being judged not by their overall quality but by their worst day.\n\nThe review culture has also changed behaviour inside businesses. Staff may be encouraged to ask customers to “leave us a quick rating” before they have even finished their meal. In the best cases, this leads to better service because teams know they are accountable. In the worst cases, it creates stress and artificial friendliness, with workers acting like performers rather than people. Managers sometimes redesign policies simply to avoid public criticism, even when the criticism is about something they cannot control, such as noisy street traffic outside.\n\nThen there is the problem of trust. Fake reviews exist on both sides: competitors may post negative comments, and businesses may be tempted to boost their own scores. Platforms try to detect suspicious activity, but they cannot catch everything. Because of this, experienced customers often look beyond the star rating. They read several reviews, check dates, and notice patterns: are the complaints all about slow service on weekends, or are they random? A thoughtful reader can separate a genuine warning from a dramatic rant.\n\nOverall, online reviews are neither pure justice nor pure nonsense. They can reward businesses that listen, improve, and communicate well, but they can also punish them for rare mistakes or dishonest attacks. The healthiest approach seems to be balance: customers should review responsibly, and businesses should treat reviews as feedback rather than a final verdict. In a world where a single comment can travel further than any poster in a window, reputation has become both more fragile and more manageable than ever before.","Stars, Scores, and Second Chances",{"1":8,"2":13,"3":18,"4":23,"5":28,"6":33},[9,10,11,12],"They are mainly used by young people to criticise local shops.","They have replaced all other forms of advertising for small businesses.","They show the true quality of a business more accurately than personal experience.","They can quickly influence whether a business attracts customers or loses them.",[14,15,16,17],"They help people feel less unsure when picking between unfamiliar options.","They are legally required for most services in many countries.","They make prices easier to compare across different companies.","They are always written by experts who understand the industry.",[19,20,21,22],"Customers never believe bad reviews unless they include photos.","A few angry comments can make a business look worse than it usually is.","Negative reviews are normally removed by platforms within a few hours.","Bad reviews only harm businesses that already have low prices.",[24,25,26,27],"Staff become less polite because they know customers will complain anyway.","Employees stop caring about service once ratings are high enough.","Teams refuse to speak to customers who mention online platforms.","Workers may feel pressured to act unnaturally cheerful to avoid criticism.",[29,30,31,32],"They read multiple recent comments and look for consistent patterns.","They ignore all written reviews and only trust the star rating.","They avoid any business that has fewer than five reviews.","They only believe reviews posted by users with expensive phones.",[34,35,36,37],"They are completely reliable because platforms successfully remove dishonest posts.","They are useful but imperfect, so both customers and businesses should treat them with care.","They are mostly harmful and should be banned to protect small companies.","They are irrelevant because people will always prefer recommendations from friends.",{"1":39,"2":40,"3":41,"4":42,"5":43,"6":44},"In the first paragraph, what is the writer mainly emphasising about online reviews?","Why does the writer say reviews have such a strong influence on customer choices?","What problem does the writer highlight about negative reviews?","How can review culture affect the way staff behave at work?","What does the writer suggest careful customers do because of fake reviews?","Which statement best reflects the writer’s overall view of online reviews?",1200,{"id":47,"username":48,"first_name":49,"last_name":50,"image":51},20253,"james-ford","James","Ford","https://storage.googleapis.com/uoepro_files/prod/useofenglish_ai/users/avatar/20253-b2rl4g.jpg","B2","Reading","Long Text","long-text","Create an exercise about the impact of online reviews on businesses","Standard",{"times_played":59,"num_favorites":59},1,"2026-06-19T13:08:27",null,false,true]