题目内容
—What's the time ________ your watch?
—It's six .
[ ]
It is "one of the few bright spots in the Chinese economy," says Zeng Ming. He is talking about e-commerce. Mr Zeng, the chief strategy officer for Alibaba, a giant Chinese Internet firm, predicts that digital transactions on his firm's platforms will top l trillion yuan ($159 billion) this year-more than Amazon's and eBay's combined. That is a bold claim, but consider what happened on Singles Sunday.
Invented a few years ago by students and seized upon by digital marketers, this festival for lonely hearts falls annually on the llth day of the llth month (since l is the loneliest number).It is like St Valentine's Day, only worse. Singletons shower each other with tender gifts: a barrage of pearls; a storm of sweets.
This November llth they spent a surprising 19 billion yuan on Alibaba's online platforms-a fourfold increase on a year ago, and more than double what Americans spent online last Cyber Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving, when retailers urge Americans to shop online). About 100m purchases were logged, accounting for 80% of the packages shipped that day. Couriers(怏递员) were buried in parcels.
So life is good for China's e-tailers, then? Not exactly. The number of digital marketers is increasing and online sales are booming. Consumers are enjoying lower prices, better service and more variety. The problem? The pressure on profits in Chinese e-commerce is worse than in America, reckons Elinor Leung of CLSA, a broker. "Almost no one makes money," she says.
The fiercest battles are being fought between online retailers and their bricks-and-mortar(实体的) rivals.Dangdang, a firm. that resembles Amazon,.and 360buy, another online retailer, have cut prices fiercely. Tencent, a cash-rich online giant known for its instant-messaging software, is splashing out to win market share. 360buy has also just raised $400m from investors to do the same. But it is unclear how much longer such firms can burn through capital.
【小题1】What's the best title of this passage?
A.The Ambition of Alibaba |
B.Fierce Competition between Retailers |
C.A Newly Sprung Festival for the Singles |
D.Chinese Booming and Developing E-commerce |
A.outweigh Amazon and eBay in worldwide influence |
B.rank top among all the Internet firms |
C.have more than 159 billion dollars' sale |
D.create another sales miracle just like the one on Singles Day |
A.About 80 million. | B.About 100 million. |
C.About 125 million. | D.About 180 million. |
A.Optimistic. | B.Concerned. |
C.Sympathetic. | D.Indifferent. |
Father Maurice Chase used a special way to celebrate his 90th birthday. The Catholic priest(神父) took $ 15,000 in cash to Los Angeles’ Skid Row (贫民区) and gave it away. Twenty wheelchair – bound people received $100 bills, while the rest received $1to $ 3 each.
“I come out here to tell them that God loves them and I love them and that some one is concerned about them,” Chase said.
Chase has given away cash and blessings every Sunday at the same corner for 24 years.Several hundred people wait for him every week.
He makes a point of coming on Thanksgiving and Christmas, too, but this is the first year he spent his birthday in the downtown neighborhood where people live mainly in shelters and on dirty sidewalks.
“ It’s the place that makes me the happiest.I just love it,” said Chase. “I look forward to coming here.”
The money comes from donations he receives from rich and famous people he met during his work as assistant to the president of Loyola Marymount University.
The crowd broke into choruses of “Happy Birthday” several times. Some people presented him birthday cards, to his delight.
Travis Kemp, a 51 – year – old disabled man with long black hair, was one of the lucky 20 to receive $ 100. He said he had no special plans for spending the money. “He has a lot of respect from me,” Kemp said. “I know I couldn’t do it.”
【小题1】On his 90 th birthday, Chase .
A.handed out cash to the needy |
B.collected money for poor people |
C.visited poor people’s homes with gifts |
D.held a party at Los Angeles’ Skid Row |
A.Celebrating his birthday with his neighbours. |
B.Working in Loyola Marymount University. |
C.Celebrating Christmas with the people he has helped. |
D.Going to Los Angeles’ Skid Row to help people there. |
A.All his savings. |
B.His earnings as a Catholic priest. |
C.Donations from the wealthy and celebrities(名人). |
D.Donations from Loyola Marymount University. |
A.he was the luckiest person on that day |
B.the disabled need to be taken care of |
C.Chase is greatly appreciated by the needy |
D.even old people came to celebrate Chase’s birthday |
A.Every recipient could get $100 in cash from Father Maurice Chase. |
B.Father Maurice Chase gave the cash away not only on his birthday but also on other occasions. |
C.Although Father Maurice Chase gave the cash away on his birthday, he didn’t receive anything in return. |
D.Father Maurice Chase earned a lot of money as assistant to the president of Loyola Marymount University. |
Over three million people will do their Christmas shopping entirely online this year without once visiting an actual shop, a poll (民意调查) has found. Overcrowding and long queues in shops are forcing people away from the high street as the hassle (烦扰) of Christmas shopping becomes too much.
The number of people turning their backs on the high street is almost one million higher than it was last year, according to the poll by YouGov. Last Christmas 2.4 million shoppers did not do any of their shopping in actual shops. The figure this year is predicted to be around 3.4 million, equal to around 7 percent of the adult population.
Over a third of people said that the main turn-off about shopping on the high street is 0ver-crow-ding. Meanwhile almost a quarter said that long queues at the cheek-out are the worst thing about it.
Of the 2.065 people pored, even those who are stir taking to the shops plan to spend less time in them this Christmas. Around 31 percent of shoppers who plan to spend at least some time on the high street will spend less than half of their shopping time in actual shops, using the rest of the time to shop remotely via the internet. This compares to 28 percent of people last year. Meanwhile the proportion of people spending over half of their shopping time in high street shops has dropped from 41 percent last year to 39 percent this year. Just 2 percent of people said that they are looking forward to dealing wi.th store staff this festival season.
Guy Boxall, senior product marketing manager at Casio Business Solutions Division, which commissioned the research from YouGov, said that despite the fall in people visiting the high street,humans are "social creatures" who actually like spending time together.
"Although the high street is facing a big challenge Christmas, retailers (零售商) should see this research as a challenge to improve the in-store shopping experience, rather than the nail in the coffin. We are social creatures, and the desire to spend time with each other, particularly at Christmas, is never going to go away," said Mr. Boxall.
【小题1】According to the poll, in this year's Christmas
A.about 7 % of the population will do both online and actual shopping |
B.about 31% of shoppers will do half of their shopping in actual shops |
C.about 39% of shoppers will do more than half of their shopping in actual shops |
D.over three million shoppers will quit actual shopping just because of the long queues |
A.Something that makes people lose heart |
B.Something that makes people lose face |
C.Something that makes people lose interest |
D.Something that makes people lose courage |
A.retailers should reduce their in-store goods. |
B.retailers wiR be pessimistic about the result of this research. |
C.retailers should focus on the advantage of in-store shopping. |
D.retailers will make more profits this Christmas than last Christmas |
A.Concerned. | B.Doubtful. | C.Approving. | D.Objective. |