1 . Directions: After reading the passage below, fill in the blanks to make the passage coherent and grammatically correct. For the blanks with a given word, fill in each blank with the proper form of the given word; for the other blanks, use one word that best fits each blank.

Buy Now, Pay Later Spending

Buy now, pay later(BNPL) spending is expected to rise to record levels this holiday season. With so many young “buy now, pay later” shoppers already in debt from this short-term financing tool not requiring interest, questions emerge: Why do these shoppers use such a tool? And what risks does it pose to their budgets in the months     1     (come)?

The many Generation Z and millennials (typically around 40 years and younger) tend to use this short-term financing,     2     allows them to buy items and pay for them over time. Offered mostly by financial technologies, BNPL allows these customers to pay back their purchases     3     interest and with the first payment usually made at checkout. The most common “buy now, pay later” plan is     4     customers make four equal payments and pay off the debt in six weeks. It’s been a lifeline for some people, such as a university student     5     weekly income is not big enough. “BNPL provides consumers with flexible payment options so they     6     manage spending,” said Vivek Pandya, lead analyst at Adobe Digital Insights. That is of great importance for many consumers, especially     7     with a tendency to purchase higher-cost items.

However, since BNPL     8     (appear), warnings from experts have come into our view. They have been indicating that it’s financially unhealthy to form such a spending habit. According to New York Federal Reserve economists, BNPL may encourage debt to increase over time,     9     (influence) a consumer’s ability to meet non-BNPL commitments, or users to over extend themselves. Users should also note that     10     interest is not charged on the loan, they’ll be hit with late fees for missed payments, which can add up quickly, says the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

2 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入 1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

A cashless society is defined as one that doesn’t use cash in monetary transactions (交易). These societies favor alternative means of payment, such     1     credit cards, or contactless payment.

Of all the companies     2     (move) closer to becoming cashless, most people agree that Sweden is the closest. 85% of the country has access to online banking and only 2% of the country’s transactions consist of cash.

There     3     (be) a number of reasons for this cashless trend. Sweden has access to a popular payment app     4     (call) Swish, which more than 50% of the country uses. But the     5     (big ) catalyst (引发变化的因素) so far is that most Swedish merchants don’t access cash payment.

China also has a vast cashless market,    6     is mostly dominated by Tencent’s WeChat Pay or Alipay, which is owned by Alibaba. But unlike many other countries, China hasn’t embraced (欣然接受) credit card payment. Instead, most Chinese consumers make payment by scanning QR codes (二维码) on     7     (they) phones.

Most merchants request payment via QR codes and it’s not uncommon     8     (see) QR codes located all throughout China. And this trend is starting to spread to other countries that have a lot of Chinese     9     (travel).

The growing cashless trend has led many people to wonder     10     the U.S. will eventually go cashless. It is possible since U.S. consumers are increasingly moving away from cash and embracing other forms of payment.

3 . 阅读下面材料，在空白处填入适当内容（一个单词）或括号内单词的正确形式

WeChat, one of the world’s most popular mobile apps and social networks, brought home iF Gold Award for its smart retail innovation, Scan & Go. It is     1     first ever Chinese product to win gold in the iF Service Design category.

Scan & Go enables shoppers at retail stores to turn    2     (they) mobile phones into a virtual checkout counter. When shopping, customers use their mobile phones     3     (scan) product barcodes, view product information, get discounts, complete self-checkout, and pay     4     (direct) within the app via WeChat Pay. There is no queuing up at the cash register. “This concept     5     (show) a customer-centric scan-and-go-solution for an optimized (充分利用的) shopping and retail context. All standards of the good user experience     6     (meet) in this service design, including touchless access, efficiency or ease-of-use in scanning of market products and the final payment and checkout. This is user-friendly design at its     7     (good),” says iF Gold Award in its Gold Statement to Scan & Go.

According to statistics, sales during peak hours in     8     (tradition) supermarkets account for 60% of total turnover, and     9     average customers spend three to five minutes on queuing and payment during peak hours. With Scan & Go, customers no longer have to queue, and the payment time     10     (shorten) to one minute.

4 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Zhang Ying, head of WeChat Pay, introduced that WeChat Pay is beginning to attempt the launch of “WeChat Palm(手掌) Payment”, during the 2023 Open Class PRO     1     (host) by WeChat last night.

According to the     2     (introduce), in the future, users can bind (绑定) their membership cards, transportation cards, etc. to their palms     3     (achieve) “one palm to rule them all”. They can consume, pass through and verify their identity without carrying a phone,     4     is extremely convenient. 

Now this feature     5     (attract) businesses to jointly develop the technology continuously. Although the official arrange time has not been announced, given WeChat’s speed, it is highly likely     6     we will be able to use palm payment this year. According to previous tests, users only need to register palm information on palm-scanning devices and link it to their     7    (privacy) WeChat account. They can complete payments directly by     8     (scan) their palms when consuming offline, solving the embarrassing situation of difficult-to-use face-scanning offline. 

Moreover, in terms of principle, palm pattern recognition should be     9     (easy) than facial recognition, and     10     degree of individual difference is relatively large, making it more secure.

5 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

China has transformed into a cashless society thanks to the e-payment apps and more than 1 billion smartphone owners. Although there are no     1    (office)data,about 80 percent of the Chinese people no longer carry“enough”cash with     2     (they). The last time I saw someone paying in cash was a month ago when a senior citizen     3     (pay) for his purchase in a supermarket. Both the checkout staff     4     customers waiting behind the elderly person looked impatient.

To ensure that those who want to pay     5    cash are not laughed at—most of     6    are aged people not familiar with mobile apps — the central authorities have issued a regulation saying shops should not refuse cash payment, and those who do so will be punished.

So popular has e-payment become that even beggars outside some scenic     7     (spot), according to a media report, refuse     8     (accept) cash.Instead, they carry a board with QR code and ask the kind-hearted souls to scan. I thought it was not true until I came across a     9     (visual)impaired(受损的)beggar outside a Beijing hospital     10     (carry)a board with a QR code along with a cardboard box for cash bills and coins.

10 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

Annabelle Huang recently won a government lottery to try China’s latest economics experiment: a national digital currency.

After    1    (win) the lottery through the social media app WeChat, Ms. Huang received a digital envelope with 200 electronic Chinese yuan inside, or eCNY. To spend it, she went to a convenience store to buy some nuts and yogurt. She pulled up a QR code (二维码),    2    the store scanned for payment.

“The journey of how you pay is similar    3    that of other Chinese payment apps like Alipay and WeChat Pay,” Compared with the other two payment apps, Ms. Huang added that the new way wasn’t quite smooth.

The development of a national digital currency began in 2014, when the People’s Bank of China set up an internal group    4    (short) after Bitcoin (比特币) gained attention in the country. Over the last 12 months, more than 60 countries    5    (experiment) with national digital currencies, up from just over 40 a year    6    (early), according to the Bank for International Settlements.

    7    the Chinese government has not said if and when it will officially introduce the eCNY nationwide, several officials have mentioned having it ready for    8    (tour) visiting the 2022 Olympics in Beijing.

If the eCNY is successful, it will give the Central Bank new powers to help the economy grow. With new tools     9    (develop) to collect the real-time data to record every transaction,    10    raises privacy concerns, though.