1 . Recently turning 25, Amazon is undergoing great changes. One thing is sure: Amazon has big plans for you, your money and your data.

The main site and shopping experience are unlikely to change much over the next few years unless the company is forced to by the EU or US authorities. Instead, Amazon is looking to get into the physical world. However, there are still some things that people prefer to test in person rather than buy blind online. Aside from the main site, the future of retail (零售) for Amazon looks to be using abandoned department stores. According to The Wall Street Journal, Amazon will make some stores into fulfilment centres (仓储中心) while turning others into Amazon Department Store.

Food delivery is also an area that Amazon is interested in, and it currently owns roughly 16 per cent of the food delivery company Deliveroo. Many of its stores will soon begin using fingerprint scans to pay for goods. If anyone can compete with supermarkets Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Waitrose, it’s Amazon.

The largest area of investment for Amazon is in the field of health, because it’s one of a few industries that offer it the large amounts of money needed when it comes to growth. Soon to offer services from telemedicine to insurance widely, Amazon has already offered some medicines. What’s more, from cameras outside your home to keyless entry, Amazon wants to deliver its packages more securely and directly.

These services mean Amazon will be in charge of more of your home than ever before. Amazon is thinking globally, too, planning to send several satellites into space to supply fast and affordable broadband services to tens of millions of people who do not have reliable Internet.

The next few years are important for Amazon’s continued success. The company needs your money and data to make that happen. While it was a huge force during the pandemic, Amazon’s next moves see them in new fields where success is important but not guaranteed. Time will tell whether you, and others, trust Amazon with their health and even more access to their homes.

1. What does Amazon intend to do, based on paragraph 2?

A．It will make big changes to its main site later.	B．It will focus on making use of physical stores.
C．It will be controlled by the EU to a great extent.	D．It will continue to focus on the virtual world.

2. Why is Amazon interested in the health industry?

A．Few enterprises have developed in this field.

B．The company has related industries which can offer help.

C．It offers the economic benefits required for enterprise expansion.

D．Offering medication has a bright future and can bring in big money.

3. How will Amazon achieve its global vision?

A．It will set up reliable Internet for online shopping.

B．It will offer broadband for free to people in remote areas.

C．It will support the aerospace industry by launching satellites.

D．It will provide various services including door to door delivery.

4. What is the author’s intention in the last paragraph?

A．To make a brief summary of Amazon’s plan.

B．To say Amazon needs people’s trust to succeed.

C．To state the social background that Amazon faces.

D．To describe the important role Amazon plays in daily life.

3 . 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。

This year marks the 15th anniversary of China’s Double 11 online shopping festival.

The first Double 11 event     1     (initiate) by Alibaba on November 11 in 2009 and has become the largest e-commerce shopping gala in the world today. Every year people usually look forward to this online shopping festival at     2     many merchants will do promotional activities. The     3     (innovation) marketing model has profoundly transformed China’s     4     (consume) market and injected enormous power into the country’s economic development.

This year’s Double 11 shopping festival witnessed     5     increase in consumers’ demand and enthusiasm     6     quality products.

According to Tmall, a leading online retail platform affiliated with Alibaba, 155 brands achieved sales of over 100 million yuan ($13.72 million) as soon as the event     7     (official) started at 8 pm on October 31. 71,900 brands broke the first-day     8     (sale) record of last year in the first hour     9     business volume of 29 livestreammg rooms hit 100 million yuan at the start.

Over the past 15 years, the Double 11 festival has become the most important platform     10     (satisfy) the needs of consumers as well as promote economic development in China.

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。

People have been applying silk, known as si in Chinese, into fabrics for 5,000 years. The     1     (produce) of silk involves the growing of mulberry trees (桑树) and raising of silkworms. It remains a     2     (tradition) practice even today. 

Once upon     3     time, when spring turned to summer, the Grand Canal, a vast waterway system connecting Beijing and Hangzhou, was very busy. Countless boats used the waterway     4     (transport) fabrics. This valuable goods would take two months to reach the capital city,     5     it would be transformed into cool clothes.

Silk has also played a significant role in Chinese interactions     6     the rest of the world. The Silk Road     7     (establish) during the Han Dynasty and promoted the exchange of goods and cultural     8     (practice). Chinese silk was one of the main goods traded, traveling as far as Rome.

In China, fabrics such as ling, luo, chou, and duan represent the improvement of techniques in making textile (纺织品) . Silk is processed     9     (different), which results in silks of different shapes and patterns. Silk combines the beauty of art and technology. It     10     (be) an important carrier of Chinese culture since ancient times and remains so today.

7 . The halo effect is a cognitive bias (认知偏见) that affects our opinions of quality in products, brands, businesses or people. It describes our tendency to judge a wider concept on our experience of a single moment or interaction. That is, your experience of using a product may colour your impression of an entire brand.

This is a very surface-level, quick-fire response that’s deep in our mind. If we see a good or bad quality, we really can’t help thinking this “thing” must flow through to the rest of the person, business or brand. Marketers understand this and have been using it against you for years.

Advertisers want to back winners, especially those on big stages. The Olympics, the World Cup and the Super Bowl all attract huge amounts of advertising spend. Why? Because when sports stars win big, they create huge amounts of feel-good factors and a brand can use the halo effect to project some of those feel-good factors onto themselves.

Studies have shown that when a product has a label that it is either fair trade, sustainably sourced or organic in nature, it will receive higher ratings in customer satisfaction and people will pay more for it. In a blind taste test though, that’s not necessarily the case. The product could be considered poor in taste or quality, but the act of adding a certain label to the packaging increases people’s liking for it.

The halo effect is a bias we cannot escape. It is in action everywhere in the modern world. Every high-end product you experience leaves a lasting impression and every advertisement that catches your eye is looking to direct your attention towards something you may not have otherwise been interested in. As a consumer, be careful. There are businesses that will go to any extent to influence your behaviour. Next time you find yourself really wanting something, stop and ask yourself why.

1. How does the halo effect influence our opinions?

A．It helps us see things in a better way.	B．It deepens our understanding of things.
C．It stops us from jumping to conclusions.	D．It works on us through former experience.

2. Why do advertisers back winners of big events?

A．To use halo effect to attract more audience.

B．To contribute to the development of sports.

C．To connect their brands with positive emotions.

D．To drive sports stars to create feel-good factors.

3. What can be inferred about the halo effect from Paragraph 4?

A．It leads to false advertisements.	B．It results in incorrect judgments.
C．It ensures the quality of products.	D．It improves environmental protection.

4. What is the purpose of the last part of the text?

A．To warn of unplanned buying.	B．To summarize the halo effect.
C．To expose the influence of advertising.	D．To show modern marketing strategies.

8 . The law of supply and demand (需求) explains how the prices of goods and services are determined. Prices rise when there is an increase in demand. When there is an increase in supply, prices go down.

When the amount of goods being demanded is the same as the amount of goods being supplied, it stabilizes prices. However, if either side increases too much, it can create economic (经济的) problems. Tulip Mania was a period in the Dutch Golden Age when the prices of tulips rose and dropped rapidly. In the 1630s, the demand for these flowers increased so much that prices went out of control.

After tulips were introduced to the Netherlands, they became a symbol of wealth and position. As a result, the rare types were seen as valuable things and were trade at high prices. Soon, they grew in popularity as a trading product, and traders bought them to make a lot of money. Even ordinary people started to believe it was an easy way to make money and got involved (参与) in the trade of the tulips.

Prices kept on rising as more people wanted tulips. Some people began selling all of their possessions (财产) in order to buy them. And the prices became unbelievably higher than the value of the actual things. As the supply increased, however, some people thought the demand for tulips would not last and began to sell their tulips. Finally, prices dropped, and many were left poor with worthless tulips.

1. What does the underlined word “stabilizes” in Paragraph 2 mean?

A．Brings something down.	B．Loses control of something.
C．Keeps something exactly the same.	D．Makes something unlikely to change.

2. What caused the huge increase in tulips’ prices in the 1630s?

A．Their high value.	B．Powerful demand.
C．Their extreme rareness.	D．The government’s economic policy.

3. According to the text, Tulip Mania __________________.

A．involved a wide range of people	B．helped create the Dutch Golden Age
C．went against the law of supply and demand	D．led to the slow economic growth in the Netherlands

4. Why did some people begin to sell their tulips during Tulip Mania?

A．Their tulips were just common types.	B．Their prices would remain unchanged.
C．They needed money to make a living.	D．They were worried about the demand for tulips.

9 . Italian company Lablaco is working with fashion houses and brands to digitize their clothes in the growing “phygital” fashion market. Lablaco was founded in 2016 by Lorenzo Albrighi and Eliana Kuo, who both had backgrounds in luxury fashion. They were looking to improve the industry’s sustainability and promote circular fashion — the practice of designing and producing clothes in a way that reduces waste.

Pushing fashion into digital spaces helps generate data that is vital in efforts to move toward circular fashion. With Lablaco’s model, customers can buy both a physical fashion item and its digital “twin” designed to be collected or worn in virtual environments. The physical and digital items remain paired even after sale, so if a physical item is resold, the digital one is transferred to the new owner’s digital wallet. The item’s creator can follow its after-sales journey. Without digitizing the product, as Albrighi emphasizes, there wouldn’t be any data to analyze and understand the fashion’s impact.

The fashion industry creates roughly 92 million tons of waste annually, and it is believed that digital fashion could have a role in reducing that figure. Kuo said digital spaces could be used as a test bed for the physical world. For example, a designer could release an item of digital clothing in 10 colors in digital spaces, and use the sales data to inform which colors to use for the real-world version. This on-demand model can help reduce fashion waste. Trying on virtual clothes could also reduce the amount of clothes that are returned in the physical world. Additionally, staging fashion shows in virtual spaces reduces the need for the fashion world to travel, thereby reducing its carbon footprint.

But for this innovation to become widespread, Albrighi says motivating brands is the key. With the phygital model, they can receive royalties (版税) when an item is sold and resold throughout its lifetime — a way to “produce less and actually earn more”.

1. What’s Albrighi and Eliana Kuo’s purpose of founding Lablaco?

A．To digitize clothes and waste less.

B．To put the fashion design into practice.

C．To dominate the “phygital” fashion market.

D．To promote luxury fashion and earn more.

2. What do we know about Lablaco’s model?

A．The physical and digital fashion items can be both resold.

B．The physical fashion items are paired with digital ones for sale.

C．Its product creator can check the after sales information any time.

D．Its owner would understand its impact by analyzing the data.

3. What does paragraph 3 mainly talk about?

A．Digital spaces could be used as a test bed in the fashion industry.

B．Trying on virtual clothes could decrease the waste of fashion market.

C．Staging fashion shows in virtual spaces reduces the fashion waste.

D．Digital fashion could help reduce the fashion waste in several ways.

4. What can we infer from the text?

A．Lablaco is setting the fashion.

B．Digital fashion has entered a new age.

C．Cooperation with Lablaco will be profitable.

D．The fashion industry lacks environmental awareness.

10 . 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. ceaselessly     B. consists     C. flavored     D. markets     E. modest       F. perfect G. presence        H. spread       I. registered     J. sights        K. specifically

Opposite a university campus on the outskirts of Jakarta, motorbikes line the front of Ricky Salim’s ice-cream and tea store, one of thousands of Mixue franchise owners across Asia. This Chinese firm, which built its brand selling teas and soft-serve ice-cream in smaller Chinese cities with relatively     1     average incomes, is exporting its model across South-East Asia. Its nearly 22,000 franchised stores worldwide have made it the fifth-largest fast-food chain in the world.

Part of the reason for Mixue’s success     2     in selling Asia’s favourite drink: bubble tea, a milky tea containing chewy tapioca balls. In China, the market for these     3     teas was twice that for coffee in 2021, with a $20bn turnover, according to Momentum Works, a research firm in Singapore.

As growth has slowed in China, bubble-tea brands have set their     4     on South-East Asia, where the market was worth $4bn. Several other large Chinese tea brands, including HeyTea, Nayuki Tea, ChaGee and Happy Lemon, have also moved into the region.

Yet no ready-made bubble-tea chain has     5     faster than Mixue, which opened its first store in Vietnam in 2018. By March it had around 1,500 stores in Indonesia; the firm wants to double its     6     there by the end of this year.

Unlike fancier bubble-tea brands, Mixue     7     itself as cheap and cheerful, rather than trendy. Its viral song has been translated into 20 languages and is often played     8     in its franchises. “What it took our China team ten or 20 years to figure out, we’ve been able to     9     in just one year by learning from their experiences,” says Mr. Hartanto.

Mixue’s biggest ambitions for growth are in countries with emerging economies and many young people. Yet over the past year Mixue stores have also opened in Australia, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, and the firm has     10     its trademark in markets from Europe and America to Uzbekistan. It has announced plans for an initial public offering on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. The singing snowman is coming your way.