2 . Healthy See, Healthy Do

Visit the grocery store on an empty stomach, and you will probably come home with a few things you did not plan to buy. But hunger is not the only cause of additional purchases.     1    

The checkout area is a particular hotspot for junk food.     2     And a few studies have suggested that simply swapping in healthier options can change customer behavior. A 2012 study in the Netherlands found that hospital workers were more likely to give up junk food for healthy snacks when the latter were more readily available on canteen shelves, for example.

    3     It has been working with more than 1,000 store owners to encourage them to order and promote nutritious foods. “Making healthy foods more convenient or appealing can lead to increased sales of those products.” says Tamar Adjoian, a research scientist at the department.

Adjoian and her colleagues wondered if such findings would apply to their city’s crowded urban checkout areas, so they selected three Bronx supermarkets for their own study.     4     Then they recorded purchases over six three-hour periods in each store for two weeks.

Of the more than 2,100 shoppers they observed, just 4 percent bought anything from the checkout area. Among those who did, however, customers in the healthy lines purchased nutritious foods more than twice as often as those in the standard lines.     5     The findings were reported in September in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior.

The potential influence may seem small, but Adjoian believes that changing more checkout lines will open customers’ eyes to nutritious, lower-calorie foods. Health department officials are now exploring ways to expand healthy options at checkout counters throughout New York City.

A．They bought unhealthy foods 40 percent less often.

B．These findings caught the attention of New York City Department of Health.

C．They replaced candies and cookies with fruits and nuts near the checkout counter.

D．The supermarkets began to offer nutritious, lower-calorie foods.

E．These foods give people more energy.

F．The location of store displays also influences our shopping choices.

G．The products most commonly found there are sugary and salty snacks.

4 . A bargain is something offered at a low and advantageous price. A more recent definition is: a bargain is a dirty trick to force money out of the pockets of silly and innocent people.

The cost of producing a new—for example—toothpaste would make 80 p the proper price for it, so we will market it at £ 1.20. It is not a bad toothpaste, and as people like to try new things it will sell well to start with; but the attraction of novelty soon fades, so sales will fall. When that happens we will reduce the price to £ l. 15. And we will turn it into a bargain by printing 5 p OFF all over it.

Sometimes it is not 5 p OFF but l p OFF. What breathtaking rudeness to advertise l p OFF your soap or washing powder or whatever! Even the poorest old-age pensioner ought to regard this as an insult(侮辱), but he doesn’t. A bargain must not be missed. People say one has to have washing powder(or whatever)and one might as well buy it a penny cheaper.

The real danger starts when unnecessary things become “bargains”. Many people just cannot resist bargains. Provided they think they are getting a bargain they will buy clothes they will never wear or furniture they have no space for. Once I heard of a man who bought an electric saw as a bargain and cut off two of his fingers the next day. But he had no regrets: the saw had been truly cheap.

Quite a few people actually believe that they make money on such bargains. A lady once told me: “I’ve had a lucky day today. I bought a dress for £120, reduced from £400; and I bought a beautiful Persian carpet for £600, reduced from £900.” It will never occur to her that she has actually wasted £720. She feels as though she had made £ 580. She also feels, I am sure, that if she had more time for shopping, she could make a living out of it.

Some people buy in large quantities because it is cheaper. Once a couple bought enough sugar for their lifetime and the lifetime of their children and grandchildren. They thought it a bargain not to be missed. When the sugar arrived they didn’t know where to store it —until they realized that their toilet was a very spacious one. So that was where they piled up their sugar. Not only did their guests feel rather strange whenever they were offered sugar to put into their coffee, but the toilet became extremely sticky.

To offer bargains is a commercial trick to make the poor poorer. When greedy fools fall for this trick, it serves them right.

1. Which word best describes the language style of the passage?

A．Polite.

B．Foolish.

C．Humorous.

D．Serious.

2. What does the underlined word “novelty” in Paragraph 2 probably mean?

A．Good quality.

B．Low price.

C．Newness.

D．Curiosity.

3. How does the author feel about l p OFF a product?

A．It’s a gift for poor people.	B．It’s an offense to shoppers.
C．It’s a bargain worth trying.	D．It’s a real reduction in price.

4. Which statement will the author probably agree with?

A．Bargains are things people don’t really need.	B．Bargains are often real cheap products.
C．Bargains help people make a living.	D．Bargains play tricks on people.

5 . Wealth starts with a goal saving a dollar at a time. Call it the piggy bank strategy(策略). There are lessons in that time-honored coin-saving container.
Any huge task seems easier when reduced to baby steps. If you wished to climb a 12,000-foot mountain, and could do it a day at a time, you would only have to climb 33 feet daily to reach the top in a year. If you want to take a really nice trip in 10 years for a special occasion, to collect the $15,000 cost, you have to save $3.93 a day. If you drop that into a piggy bank and then once a year put $1,434 in a savings account at 1% interest rate after-tax, you will have your trip money.
When I was a child, my parents gave me a piggy bank to teach me that, if I wanted something, I should save money to buy it. We associate piggy banks with children, but in many countries, the little containers are also popular with adults. Europeans see a piggy bank as a sign of good fortune and wealth. Around the world, many believe a gift of a piggy bank on New Year’s Day brings good luck and financial success. Ah, but you have to put something in it.
Why is a pig used as a symbol of saving? Why not an elephant bank, which is bigger and holds more coins? In the Middle Ages, before modern banking and credit instruments, people saved money at home, a few coins at a time dropped into a jar or dish. Potters(制陶工) made these inexpensive containers from an orange-colored clay(黏土) called “pygg,” and folks saved coins in pygg jars.The Middle English word for pig was “pigge”. While the Saxons pronounced pygg, referring to the clay, as “pug”, eventually the two words changed into the same pronunciation, sounding the “i” as in pig or piggy. As the word became less associated with the orange clay and more with the animal, a clever potter fashioned a pygg jar in the shape of a pig, delighting children and adults. The piggy bank was born.
Originally you had to break the bank to get to the money, bringing in a sense of seriousness into savings. While piggy banks teach children the wisdom of saving, adults often need to relearn childhood lessons. Think about the things in life that require large amounts of money--- college education, weddings, cars, medical care, starting a business, buying a home, and fun stuff like great trips. So when you have money, take off the top 10%, put it aside, save and invest wisely.
1. What is the piggy bank strategy?

A．Paying 1% income tax at a time.

B．Setting a goal before making a travel plan.

C．Aiming high even when doing small things.

D．Putting aside a little money regularly for future use.

2. Why did the writer’s parents give him a piggy bank as a gift?

A．To delight him with the latest fashion.

B．To encourage him to climb mountains.

C．To help him form the habit of saving.

D．To teach him English pronunciation.

3. What does then underlined word “something”(Paragraph 3) most probably refer to?

A．Money	B．Gifts
C．Financial success	D．Good luck

4. The piggy bank originally was _________.

A．a potter’s instrument	B．a cheap clay container
C．an animal-shaped dish	D．a pig-like toy for children

5. The last paragraph talks about ________.

A．the seriousness of educating children

B．the enjoyment of taking a great trip

C．the importance of managing money

D．the difficulty of starting a business

6 .        In the more and more competitive service industry, it is no longer enough to promise customer satisfaction. Today, customer “delight” is what companies are trying to achieve in order to keep and increase market share.

It is accepted in the marketing industry, and confirmed by a number of researches, that customers receiving good service will promote business by telling up to 12 other people; those treated badly will tell their tales of woe to up to 20 people. Interestingly, 80 percent of people who feel their complaints are handled fairly will stay loyal.

New challenges for customer care have come when people can obtain goods and services through telephone call centers and the Internet. For example, many companies now have to invest (投资) a lot of money in information technology and staff training in order to cope with the “phone rage”—caused by delays in answering calls, being cut off in mid-conversation or let waiting for long periods.

“Many people do not like talking to machines,” says Dr. Storey, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at City University Business School. “Banks, for example, encourage staff at call centers to use customer data to establish instant and good relationship with them. The aim is to make the customer feel they know you and that you can trust them —the sort of comfortable feelings people have during face-to-face chats with their local branch manager.”

Recommended ways of creating customer delight include: under-promising and over-delivering (saying that a repair will be carried out within five hours, but getting it done within two); replacing a faulty product immediately; throwing in a gift voucher (购物礼券) as an unexpected “thank you” to regular customers; and always returning calls, even when they are complaints.

Aiming for customer delight is all very well, but if services do not reach the high level promised, disappointment or worse will be the result. This can be eased by offering an apology and an explanation of why the service did not meet usual standards with empathy (for example, “I know how you must feel”), and possible solutions (replacement, compensation or whatever fairness suggests best meets the case).

Airlines face some of the toughest challenges over customer care. Fierce competition has convinced them that delighting passengers in an important marketing tool, while there is great potential for customer anger over delays caused by weather, unclaimed luggage and technical problems.

For British Airways staff, a winning telephone style is considered vital in handling the large volume of calls about booking and flight times. They are trained to answer quickly, with their name, job title and a “we are here to help” attitude. The company has invested heavily in information technology to make sure that information is available instantly on screen.

British Airways also says its customer care policies are applied within the company and staff are taught to regard each other as customers requiring the highest standards of service.

Customer care is obviously here to stay and it would be a foolish company that used slogans such as “we do as we please.” On the other hand, the more customers are promised, the greater the risk of disappointment.

1. We can learn from Paragraph 2 that__________.

A．complaining customers are hard to satisfy

B．unsatisfied customers receive better service

C．satisfied customers catch more attention

D．well-treated customers promote business

2. The writer mentions “phone rage” (Paragraph 3) to show that__________.

A．customers often use phones to express their anger

B．people still prefer to buy goods online

C．customer care becomes more demanding

D．customers rely on their phones to obtain services

3. What does the writer recommend to create customer delight?

A．Calling customers regularly

B．Giving a “thank you” note

C．Delivering a quicker service

D．Promising more gifts

4. If a manager should show his empathy (Paragraph 6), what would he probably say?

A．“I know how upset you must be.”

B．“I appreciate your understanding.”

C．“I’m sorry for the delay.”

D．“I know it’s our fault.”

5. Customer delight is important for airlines because__________.

A．their telephone style remains unchanged

B．they are more likely to meet with complaints

C．the services cost them a lot of money

D．the policies can be applied to their staff

6. Which of the following is conveyed in this article?

A．Face-to-face service creates comfortable feelings among customers

B．Companies that promise more will naturally attract more customers

C．A company should promise less but do more in a competitive market

D．Customer delight is more important for airlines than for banks