1 . Online art of all kinds can be accessed by as many people as the hosting server permits. But there is a(n) ______ that is allowing people to buy digital art.

Digital art that is sold online is known as an NFT, which ______ non-fungible token(非同质化代币). Non-fungible means that the item cannot be ______ by a similar item. For example, coins and bills are fungible because they have a set value and are easily exchanged. ______, trading cards are non-fungible because their worth varies depending on which card you have. An NFT can be ______ anything digital -songs, videos, images or even a social media post, one of which sold for almost USS3 million!

Others may be able to see this NFT, or art, but one person is listed as the owner on a blockchain-that is, a public ______. Blockchains are well equipped to keep track of the owner of NFT. In fact, they are used to record all kinds of online ______.

Some people are describing NFTs as an online version of collecting fine art. And collectors are ______ to put their money where their mouth is, paying thousands or even millions of dollars for NFTs.

As with fine art collecting, some people see purchasing NFTs as a(n) ______, buying art that they plan to sell at a higher price later. Others want the esteem (成就感) that comes with owning an NFT made by a famous ______. But given that a copy of an NFT is identical to the ______, the wisdom of paying massive amounts of money for one may seem ______.

On the other hand, the popularity of NFTs is ______ good news for the artists who create them. Upon selling their works as NFTs, artists receive much more than the small amounts of money they get when someone streams their video, for example. Some NFTs are even set up so that every time a work changes hands, the creator receives a percentage of the price. Thus, the artist can be paid for a single NFT many times over.

______, every NFT is unique, though some creators produce multiple very similar NFTs sort of like how multiple copies of any given trading card exist). ______ will tell whether NFT art will pay off for collectors in the long run, but for now it’s providing some people-including the artists with large sums of money.

1.

A．regulation

B．art

C．skill

D．trend

2.

A．focuses on

B．stands for

C．points to

D．consists in

3.

A．replaced

B．produced

C．released

D．covered

4.

A．In a word

B．In other words

C．In contrast

D．In conclusion

5.

A．practically

B．extremely

C．eventually

D．constantly

6.

A．image

B．database

C．relationship

D．benefit

7.

A．activities

B．performances

C．communications

D．deals

8.

A．afraid

B．eager

C．willing

D．doubtful

9.

A．amusement

B．investment

C．donation

D．hobby

10.

A．creator

B．craftsman

C．official

D．scientist

11.

A．critical

B．moderate

C．final

D．original

12.

A．foolish

B．intelligent

C．questionable

D．mysterious

13.

A．generally

B．definitely

C．consequently

D．specifically

14.

A．Theoretically

B．Objectively

C．Honestly

D．Strictly

15.

A．Standard

B．Money

C．Time

D．Technology

2 . When looking at ways to expand your business, does it make sense to go global? The answer is yes — expanding to international markets helps companies grow, increases buying power and diversifies market opportunities. It better prepares the company for changes in the _________ economy. It can result in increased profits, a diverse customer base and improved stability.

Before the pandemic, _________ expansion almost always meant international travel. _________ bias (偏见) in some countries historically made business expansion difficult for women, and international travel can _________ the delicate work-life balance entrepreneurs (企业家) of both sexes strive to maintain.

The Covid-19 pandemic _________ global e-commerce and opportunities. The world is conducting business _________ with far more success than anticipated. This shift to business by the internet presents tremendous global opportunities for women as it effectively makes the situation _________.

Conducting business on the internet _________ the complications of gender, race, religion, color and lifestyle, simplifying business down to the principles of supply and demand. This opens more doors for growth and enables entrepreneurs to study potential markets and the buyer’s journey from the _________of their own office.

So, how can you accomplish successful international expansion? First, identify your target market, and then develop an inbound marketing strategy.

This involves providing all the information your target consumers need on your __________ so consumers can find you and research the answers to their initial questions on their own. With a defined inbound strategy, well-written content and social media outreach, you can bring __________ buyers to you instead of continually searching for new buyers.

A vital part of your global inbound marketing strategy will be to translate important information from your website into your target consumer’s native language. Even if your target consumers are multilingual, most __________ to buy from sites that provide information in their native language.

Then how can you develop your inbound marketing strategy? The first step is to select a market that __________ your company goals and marketing strategy. Choose one country, one language, and develop a multilingual marketing strategy that defines your goals and prepares you to connect with prospective buyers. Once you create the plan and process for the first country, you can copy it when you’re ready to expand into __________ markets.

You might believe that your business is too small to get involved with __________ — but consider this: When you make use of the power of the internet, it doesn’t matter if your company is large or small. The key is to shift your focus from outbound to inbound marketing — and bring buyers to you.

1.

A．booming

B．domestic

C．current

D．industrial

2.

A．rapid

B．successful

C．further

D．global

3.

A．Gender

B．Media

C．Cultural

D．Political

4.

A．keep

B．upset

C．promote

D．restore

5.

A．looks into

B．breaks down

C．speeds up

D．responds to

6.

A．desperately

B．efficiently

C．securely

D．remotely

7.

A．fair

B．worse

C．real

D．reliable

8.

A．increases

B．promotes

C．removes

D．illustrates

9.

A．angle

B．comfort

C．relief

D．imagination

10.

A．desk

B．website

C．shoulder

D．market

11.

A．qualified

B．wealthy

C．foreign

D．optimistic

12.

A．intend

B．hesitate

C．volunteer

D．prefer

13.

A．attaches to

B．benefits from

C．sees through

D．agrees with

14.

A．commercial

B．additional

C．overseas

D．private

15.

A．marketing

B．financing

C．exporting

D．training

3 . PRIVACY POLICY

The Bundaberg Privacy Policy explains how we collect, store and use your personally identifiable information. Our Privacy Policy will be continuously assessed against new technologies, business practices and our customers’ changing needs. Accordingly, this Privacy Policy is subject to change over time without notification being made to users, and therefore we encourage you to periodically review this Privacy Policy to become aware of any changes that may have occurred.

➢ Collection of Personal Information

We will collect personally identifiable information from you when you knowingly provide it to us. The types of personal information we may collect, includes, but is not limited to your full name, address, email address and phone number.

In terms of your personal information, we only collect information about individuals that is necessary for us to carry on our business functions. What information we collect depends upon the nature of our dealing with you. Importantly, in some circumstances if you do not provide the information that we request, you may not be able to engage with us. For example, if you refuse to provide some personal information as may be requested on the Bundaberg website, you may not be able to use all features or services of the website.

➢ Use and Disclosure of Personal Information

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

⚫ Billing purposes;
⚫ To enable us to develop our products and business, or to customize services to better meet your needs and preferences;
⚫ Statistical purposes.
        We will contact you by electronic or other means to get your agreement first for any purpose other than those above, including but not limited to:
⚫ Future promotional and marketing purposes;
⚫ To inform you of special offers, promotions and competitions;
⚫ Any other customer support purposes.

Your personal information may be used by sub-contractors of Bundaberg for our business activities only; however, your information will not be disclosed to any other third party without your agreement, unless required to do so by law.

1. In order to be kept informed of the privacy information, you’d better __________.

A．examine the Privacy Policy regularly

B．check the official notification weekly

C．express your changing needs privately

D．evaluate the business practices critically

2. Which of the statements is TRUE about Bundaberg’s collecting users’ personal information?

A．You have no knowledge of what personal information is collected.

B．Your personal information can promote Bundaberg’s business functions.

C．All the customers are required to provide identical personal information.

D．You may not get some services without providing requested personal information.

3. Bundaberg will use your personal information for the purpose of __________ without getting your agreement first.

A．attracting new sub-contractors

B．advertising its services

C．sending bills to you

D．letting you know about special offers

4 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

One Medical

On Thursday, Amazon announced its first major acquisition (收购) under Mr. Jassy’s occupation as C.E.O., spending $3.9 billion for One Medical, a chain of primary care clinics around the country. The deal is a sign of Amazon’s health care ambitions. As the company has     1     from one business to another — including books, CDs, electronics, dog food and clothes — it has had to look in less obvious spots to find opportunities that can provide meaningful     2    .

Health care has been     3     to Amazon executives who believe it is an extremely large market, filled with inefficiencies and generally lacking the kind of     4     approach that Amazon tries to take with its businesses. “We think health care is high on the list of experiences that need     5    ,” Neil Lindsay, the senior vice president of Amazon Health Services, said in a statement announcing the deal. He also listed some of the     6     of modern health care: booking appointments, sitting in waiting rooms, even finding a parking spot.

Amazon wants to be the “front door” through which customers     7     health care. That One Medical sees about five times as many virtual visits as     8     appointments most likely made it attractive to Amazon. The company also has something Amazon values     9    : data. One Medical built its own electronic medical records system, and it has 15 years’ worth of medical and health-system data. While individual patient records are generally protected under federal health privacy laws, the big data skill that has     10     Amazon’s success can be powerful in health care — for predicting costs, targeting interventions and developing products and treatments.

5 . At 14, Fraser Doherty was busy making jam after his grandparents taught him a family recipe. He started selling jars of his jam door to door near his parents’ home in Edinburgh. As interest grew, his hobby stated to turn into a business. He now makes 40,000 jars of jam a month and is well on his way to making his first million.

Doherty, who has been chosen to represent Britain in the Global Students Entrepreneurs Awards in Chicago next month, said there are several advantages to having started young: “As a young person you have a different view of the world. You have a naivety and an optimism and are willing to give things a shot. The downside for me isn’t particularly scary. I don’t have a mortgage or kids to worry about so I didn’t have a huge amount to lose if my idea had not worked.”

Duncan Cheatle, founder of The Supper Club, a forum for established entrepreneurs in London, agreed that becoming an entrepreneur at a young age has a lot to recommend it.

“For young people there is no concept of thinking outside the box because there isn’t a box. There is capacity in young people to see things in a different way that older people lose. And often not being an expert in something can be helpful because if you don’t understand why something works in a certain way, you will decide to do it differently.”

Emma Jones, founder of Enterprise Nation, the home business website, said that young people were much more confident about using technology as a base for their business than the older generation. “Whole sectors that didn’t exist ten years ago are coming up now because young entrepreneurs are challenging all previous rules and saying technology means that we can do things like this. They have an open capacity to think of new ideas and as a result they are starting very interesting businesses.”

1. According to Doherty,         is the competitive edge of young people starting business compared with the older generation?

A．ignorance of the reality	B．naïve pursuit of a hobby
C．readiness to try things out	D．parents shouldering the financial burden

2. The underlined sentence in Paragraph 4 means young people         .

A．are reluctant to obey the existing rules

B．are not bound by established ways of doing things

C．have superior ideas to those of the older generation

D．will not fall into traps that old people set up for them

3. Which of the following statements will Emma Jones most likely agree with?

A．Abandoning all previous rules is a must to establish new sectors.

B．As people grow older, they are less able to take a fresh approach.

C．Those lacking confidence are less able to start creative businesses.

D．The use of technology contributes to the creation of new businesses.

4. The purpose of this passage is to         .

A．inform readers of success stories of young entrepreneurs

B．introduce opinions on the advantages of being young entrepreneurs

C．convince young people to follow the trend and start their own businesses

D．provide specific guidance on how to become successful young entrepreneurs

6 . Directions: Complete the following passage by using the words in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. literally       B. barrier       C. Eventually       D. find E. examines       F. features       G. innovations       H. mean I. professional       J. striking       K. well-positioned

The Best Company to Work For

Every year, Fortune magazine published a list of the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For’. How does the magazine choose the companies? Firstly, it uses a survey: 350 employees answer 57 questions about their company. Secondly, Fortune looks at important     1     of companies: for example, pay, benefits, and communication between workers and management. Finally, the magazine     2     the results to find its Top 100.

Wegmans Food Markets, which ranks No. 1 on the list, has a motto (座右铭), ‘Employees first, customers second’, and it is also one of the 50 largest private companies in the US, with annual sales of $3.6 billion, according to Forbes magazine. Apparently, being good to your employees is no     3     to making money.

How much of Wegmans’ success is due to the company’s policies? ‘Up to a point, the success is because of the freedom they give us,’ says one employee. ‘On the other hand, no company gets rich just by not being     4     to its employees. Wegmans has great marketing strategies and it’s     5     within the community. I’ve been here for 15 years. Looking back, I’d say that the company’s     6     for customers, such as the Shoppers’ Club electronic discount programme in the 1990s, have been just as important as the benefits to staff. ’

But the employee benefits are     7    . Fundamentally, Wegmans believes in     8     development. As well as scholarships, the company gives its employees business opportunities. For years, one employee made delicious cookies for her colleagues.     9    , she started selling the cookies in Wegmans. ‘I just asked the manager,’ she says. ‘While looking back, I think should have asked earlier. I could have made more money!’

The staff’s freedom to make decisions is another thing you won’t     10     everywhere. Essentially, Wegmans wants its workers to do almost anything to please the customers. Believe it or not, an employee once cooked a Thanksgiving turkey in the store for a customer because the woman’s turkey, bought in Wegmans, was too big for her oven.

7 . Directions: After reading the passages below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. increase             B. separate             C. ensure            D. better            E. ease F. under                 G. benefits               H. except          I. special     J. from     K. efforts

Tax incentives for the lump sum annual bonuses earned by residents in China will continue for the next three years.

In addition, the government has also adjusted the personal income tax rules to     1     the overall tax burden of residents, including foreign residents.

The favorable tax treatment, which started in 2005, considers the lump sum annual bonus as an independent income source of an individual. In normal taxable income calculations, the lump sum bonus is added to the total earnings for tax purposes, whereas in     2     treatment, the two are considered separately for taxes, with the bonus income attracting lower tax rates in general.

Retention (保留) of the favorable clause will help the country’s ongoing     3     to ease the tax burden of individuals, analysts said.

Six categories of special individual income tax deductions will take effect along with the amended personal income tax law from Jan 1,2019. The     4     in the threshold for personal income tax exemption from 3,500 yuan ($510) to 5,000 yuan per month has already come into effect from October this year.     

Treatment of the lump sum annual bonus as     5     from other incomes, however, is not in line with the tax rules     6     the amended personal income tax law. The special treatment will be lifted in 2022.

“In the long run, it is appropriate to cancel the treatment to     7     conform to basic taxation principles and guarantee smoothness in fiscal income,” said a professor with the Central University of Finance and Economics in Beijing.

Even without the special treatment, other personal income tax adjustments could still bring considerable     8     to the individual tax burden, especially for young and middle-aged people.

From 2019 to 2021, foreign residents in China can choose to enjoy either the newly introduced special tax deductions, or the tax exemption     9     housing allowance, language training fee, and children’s education allowance.

But from 2022, foreign residents will only be allowed to enjoy the special tax deductions, as domestic residents do.

The professor said the cancellation of tax benefits only for foreigners conforms with international conventions and the fundamental principle of an open market economy, to     10    equal treatment for domestic and foreign market participants.

8 . Directions: After reading the passages below, fill in each blank with a proper word given in the box. Each word can only be used once. Note that there is one word more than you need.

A. particularly   B. impact            C. ensuring       D. cost            E. threat F. additional     G. connectivity     H. response       I. address   J. function   K. forced

The United States is committed to empowering women all over the world. In too many places around the world today women face barriers to equality, resources, and opportunities, said USAID’s Senior official Michelle Bekkering. It could be a barrier to credit, to the     1     needed to launch a business. And all too frequently, women are tied down by gender-based violence, at home or within the community.

“Gender-based violence harms women, girls, their families, communities and countries,” added Bekkering.

Gender-based violence, is a universal barrier to global security, women’s empowerment, and economic growth. It is estimated right now that gender-based violence has     2     the world more than five percent of its global GDP, having a greater total economic impact than war.

USAID is trying to eliminate it through prevention and response. On prevention, we first need to learn what’s causing the problem,     3     if there are too many such severe incidents within a given region. How do natural disasters compound gender-based violence? What about lack of access to natural resources? What is the     4     of local laws?

As part of a     5    , we look at the regulatory framework, make sure there are laws that clearly define and punish offenders of gender-based violence.

Improving girls’ education is a step in the right direction, said Ms. Bekkering. For every    6     year that a girl goes to school, she is less likely to be a victim of gender-based violence. So is improving women’s access to digital technologies, and     7     support from local leadership.

U.S. Congress appropriates (拨款) a combined 150 million dollars to the State Department and to USAID for the global effort to     8     gender-based violence. It also provides money for combating child, early, and     9     marriage, which are closely linked to gender-based violence. Since 2012, USAID has provided critical services to over five million survivors and persons at risk of GBV.

Women and girls should be safe from the     10     of violence in their homes, in their communities, and they should have access to education and health care—and opportunities to live up to their full economic potential.

9 . In the early days of covid-19, the tech industry was consumed by a sense of excitement. With billions of people locked down at home, work and play were shifting online. Many hoped that the new normal would spark a huge productivity boom as firms digitized and workers spent less time commuting. The excitement was most evident in stock-markets, where any firm related to this trend saw its share price surge. The tech-heavy NASDAQ rose by 88%.

The crazy has ended. Today the lockdown lunacy index(疯狂指数) — which includes Netflix, a streaming service; Peloton, a maker of fancy exercise bikes; Robin-hood, a stock-trading app; Shopify, and e-commerce platform; and Zoom, a videoconferencing firm - has fallen by more than 80% from its peak.

How worrying is this return to Earth? To be sure, some of it reflects gloomier prospects for the global economy. And it is disappointing that two years of digitization and remote work have not provided clear evidence of a productivity boom. Yet there are reasons still to be techno-optimistic. Much of the early enthusiasm may simply have been focused on the wrong types of firm. Though the pandemic darlings have fizzled, the shift towards ever greater digitization continues. The true winners are not the flashy consumer-tech firms, but the companies that provide the infrastructure to enable this shift.

Look beyond the boom and bust of consumer tech, and you see the real successes. The market for the infrastructure technology that underpins people’s daily lives, such as cloud computing, cyber-security and digital payments, is booming. The cloud-computing industry is expected to grow to almost $500bn this year, up from $243bn in 2019. Amazon’s cloud offering, the largest in the world, is still growing at 33% each year. It accounted for three-quarters of the firm’s operating income over the past 12 months, and is propping up the tech giant’s ailing e-commerce business. Its closest rivals are the cloud services of Microsoft and Google. Their annual sales are growing by 40% and 36%, respectively.

Cloudification has created new demands for cybersecurity, another tech winner. The combined revenue at the three largest listed cybersecurity firms has almost doubled since the start of the pandemic. Their market capitalisation has tripled, and has come down only a fraction since the start of the year. Digital payments are another bright spot, thanks to lockdowns and social distancing. Three-quarters of iPhone owners use Apply Pay, up from half in 2019, and nine out of ten American retailers now accept it as a payment method. Almost 200m people in India and China have used some form of digital payment for the first time since the onset of covid.

The bubble may have burst on the pandemic’s darlings, but the drumbeat of digitization continues. The less obvious technologies that provide the underlying infrastructure for the shift are the true beneficiaries of covid. Whether these will fuel a productivity boost one day remains to be seen. But there was more going on during the pandemic than lockdown crazy.

1. According to the article, which of the following statements is TRUE?

A．Tech industry predicted a productivity boom in the lockdown, which proved true.

B．The share prices of customer-tech companies sharply rocketed and then declined.

C．Robinhood is a tech company specializaing in meeting demands for cybersecurity.

D．The prospects of the tech industry are too gloomy to be optimistic.

2. What does the underlined word “fizzled” in paragraph 3 mean?

A．emerged

B．benefited

C．failed

D．sustained

3. What can be inferred from the last three paragraphs?

A．Digital payment wasn’t available to Indians at all until the start of covid.

B．In the past year, Amazon has mainly depended on its e-commerce business of profits.

C．In the shift of working online, cloudification is no longer optional!

D．The market capitalization of three largest listed cybersecurity firms has kept rising.

4. What is the best title of the article?

A．Techno-pessimists Rule the Lockdown.

B．The Lockdown Index Sounds the Alarm.

C．Economic Depression Is Arriving.

D．Tech Losers and Winners of the Pandemic.

10 . The battle to contain the global obesity crisis speeded up as American public health experts pressed for a sugar tax on the country’s most popular source of refreshment — sweetened carbonated drinks and fruit juices.

In what is certain to become a worldwide debate on the use of sanctions (制裁) to deal with obesity, a group led by academics from Yale and Harvard universities proposed a “cola war”, with a 1 cent tax per fluid ounce on sweetened beverages, raising the price of the average can of cola by 15 to 20 percent. They say this would cut calorie consumption from drinks by a minimum of 10 percent and contribute almost $15 bn towards the health costs of obesity.

“The reasons to proceed are convincing. The science base linking the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to the risk of chronic disease is clear. Research suggests a tax would have strong positive effects on reducing consumption. We believe that taxes on beverages that help drive the obesity epidemic should and will become routine,” the experts say in the New England Journal of Medicine.

British nutrition specialists backed the move but said other sanctions, such as a tariff (关税) on sugar imports, could have the same impact but be less politically arguable.

Tam Fry, spokesman for UK National Obesity Forum, said: “We have got to start thinking very seriously about taxing unhealthy food and drink as part of the drive to improve the nation’s health and cut obesity. The amount of sugar that goes into these soft drinks is surprising and it has a double whammy, increasing obesity and rotting teeth.”

The US proposal follows a report by the respected Institute of Medicine this month calling for an increase in local taxes on soft drinks and junk food. In the UK, the British Medical Association narrowly defeated a proposal for a chocolate tax at its annual meeting.

Consumption of fizzy drinks, fruit juices, smoothies and other sweetened beverages is rising rapidly around the world and is recognized as a major contributor to the obesity epidemic, especially among children. Americans are drinking twice as much of the drinks as they did 25 years ago, and they now contribute 172 calories daily to the average US child’s diet. Experts say the UK is close behind.

Jack Winkler, professor of nutrition policy at London Metropolitan University, said: “I support this. It would be a massive public acknowledgement about the danger sugar poses to health.” But he proposed raising the price of sugar permanently by reforming the world goods markets. Charging tariffs, which are invisible, would be much better than raising taxes, he said. The British Nutrition Foundation said that, instead of altering food choices, increasing taxes “could simply mean higher prices for consumers — especially those on lower incomes”.

1. According to the passage, the sugar tax on the popular sweetened drinks and fruit juices is proposed _________.

A．to warn the public that such drinks are harmful and poisonous

B．to restrict the production and elimnate the global obesity crisis

C．to start a worldwide debate on the strategies to deal with obesity crisis

D．to reduce calorie consumption and raise money to fight against obesity

2. The word “whammy” in paragraph 5 can best be replaced by ___________.

A．reason

B．blow

C．aim

D．struggle

3. Which of the following cannot be true according to the passage?

A．Now it is urgent to deal with the obesity epidemic in the United States and Britain.

B．The British people consume more soft drinks and fruit juices than the Americans do today.

C．The consumption of sweetened soft drinks and fruit juices is rising rapidly around the world.

D．Americans are drinking twice as much compared with the amount a quarter of a century ago.

4. Which of the following would be the best title of the passage?

A．Ban on Carbonated Drinks and Fruit Juices

B．Link between Sweetened Beverages and Obesity

C．Demand for Economic Measures to Reduce Obesity

D．The High Consumption and Rising Price of Soft Drinks