1 . Directions: Fill in each blank with a proper word chosen from the box. Each word can be used only once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. reminder B. partner C. non-fiction D. setting E. survival F. acknowledges G. tastes H. symbolic I. value J. meaning K. grasps

What makes the perfect winter read?

As the weather turns and the sky darkens, autumn and winter can often feel like the perfect time for curling up with a good book.

But I wonder if it’s just me who finds that my reading     1     seem to change along with the seasons? The books I might choose to read in some sunny garden are very different from the ones I want when the wind is blowing outside and a few precious hours of watery daylight are the best we can hope for.

I always     2     writing that evokes (唤起) time and place, and in the midst of the coldest, darkest part of the year, I want more than ever for a book to be “a ball of light” in my hands, as Ezra Pound famously once put it — a(n)     3     of life and love.

I also need a certain degree of comfortness in a winter read — something that will keep me warm when the weather won’t! Give me gothic (哥特式的) building in the snow, with heroines whose passions burn brightly. Or let me escape completely, into some fantasy     4     — but I’d still like my forests icy and pine smelling. Give me stories of     5     and re-birth. Remind me that this time of year has     6    , too.

Katherine May’s beautiful, poetic deep thought on the season, Wintering, does precisely this. Seemingly, it’s     7    , combining aspects of her life with more universal thoughts on how we might winter well. But there’s a lyrical (抒情的),     8     quality to the writing that confuses plain concepts like “genre”. She     9     that in winter we need different tools to get us through the season and it also offers one such tool, since Wintering itself is the perfect guide book and     10     to see you through until spring.

That’s why books that help me see the beauty of the season will always be high on my list of winter reads.

2 . The first daigou, meaning someone who makes purchases on another’s behalf, were Chinese students studying abroad, who carried ____ products home on behalf of family and friends. Adding a commission (佣金) helped them pay their tuition fees. The ____ of social-networking apps such as WeChat, China’s most popular, brought the business online. Daigou could then offer their services to friends of friends, and ____ items they thought might appeal to their network. But while daigou in America and Europe purchase mainly luxury goods for their customers, in Australia they buy mainly vitamins, food and beauty products. And while luxury brands see daigou as a threat, undercutting sale in China, Australian firms have come to ____ them.

There are perhaps 50,000 daigou, ____ the aisles (过道) of Australian shops and periodically stripping them bare. Ordinary daiguo can post 60,000 parcels to China every day. The biggest have grown into ____ export businesses which deliver goods through China’s free0trade zones. Express delivery services to China have ____ and some 1,500 stores in Australia mainly take are of the needs of daigou. One such chain, AuMake, recently listed on the Australian Securities Exchange. Its ____ sales staff can arrange for a purchase to be posted to China as soon as it has been rung up (收款记账).

The ____ for the customers is simple: the products daigou post are guaranteed to be genuine. Ever since Chinese firms were found to have been selling contaminated (污染过的) milk power in 2008, many anxious Chinese parents have turned to foreign brands. But websites selling foreign goods are riddled with ____, while Chinese shops charge a fortune for the real thing.

The odd sales channel works for companies, too. Daigou allow young Australian firms to build their brands in China much more cheaply and easily than if they tried to ____ their products directly, argues Keong Chan, the chairman of AuMake. A firm called the a2 Milk Company doubled its profit in the year to June thanks to soaring Chinese ____. Daigou ____ more of those sales than Chinese retailers or e-commerce sites, according to Peter Nathan, who heads its Asia-Pacific unit. ____, many business fall over themselves to win the favour of the most influential daigou. “It’s like having 50,000 ____,” says Andrew Cohen, chief executive of Bellamy’s, a listed manufacturer of infant formula.

1.

A．desirable

B．enjoyable

C．reasonable

D．imaginable

2.

A．impact

B．contact

C．spread

D．exchange

3.

A．discover

B．promote

C．remind

D．contribute

4.

A．reject

B．embrace

C．cooperate

D．employ

5.

A．wandering

B．glancing

C．pasting

D．purchasing

6.

A．amazed

B．modified

C．skilled

D．organized

7.

A．disappeared

B．emerged

C．boomed

D．provided

8.

A．restless

B．gracious

C．persistent

D．efficient

9.

A．appeal

B．caution

C．stress

D．manual

10.

A．errors

B．fakes

C．virtues

D．values

11.

A．market

B．deliver

C．subscribe

D．develop

12.

A．price

B．demand

C．supply

D．trade

13.

A．cut down

B．make out

C．take on

D．account for

14.

A．Moreover

B．Therefore

C．Nevertheless

D．Likewise

15.

A．competitors

B．customers

C．representatives

D．sponsors