1 . Nowadays, more stores and restaurants are not accepting cash as payment. Instead, customers must pay with a credit card, or by smartphone app.
Many business owners say that being cashless has helped them streamline the way their business runs. Staff members don't have to worry about having enough money in the cash register to make change or about taking bills and coins to the bank.
However, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, more than 8 million households in the United States don't have bank accounts. Also, many people, including kids, don't meet the requirements for a credit card.
“A cashless economy is not an inclusive economy. There are consumers who can't get a credit card, because of low income. When stores refuse to accept cash, they exclude low-income or homeless people,” says Tazra Mitchell, a policy director at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute.
Plus, people who do have credit cards might prefer to pay in cash. “Cash is used by almost eight in 10 people in the US every month. That's more than any other payment type,” says Nick Bourke, a director at the Pew Charitable Trusts' consumer finance project.
Lawmakers in several places have taken steps to ban cashless stores. A handful of major cities — including New. York City and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — have already passed laws to address the problem. In San Francisco, California, a law banning cashless stores was passed last May. It says most stores in the city must allow customers to pay with cash. Derek Remski helped write the San Francisco law. Remski says, "It's about understanding that not everyone has equal access to things.”
1. What does the underlined word “streamline” in paragraph 2 probably mean?| A．Record. | B．Understand. | C．Redevelop. | D．Simplify |
| A．It is unfair to some people. | B．It is enjoyed by bank workers. |
| C．It is advantageous to customers. | D．It is the result of the marketplace. |
| A．Cash payment is still very popular with consumers. |
| B．Cashless stores will be driven out of the market. |
| C．Stores should allow more than one payment type. |
| D．Paying with credit cards has its own disadvantages. |
| A．They encouraged it. | B．They fought against it. |
| C．They cared little about it. | D．They were hopeful about it. |
2 . Labour force is the part of a nation’s population that works for pay or is actively looking for work. This group produces most of the nation’s goods and services, and its size and productivity determine the nation’s economic （经济） growth. The labour force of the United States increased from 2 million in 1800 to about 118 million in the mid 1900’s. This growth helped turn the United States from a largely agricultural country to an advanced industrial one.
The United States government uses the term “labour force ” for people at least 16 years old who have jobs or are actively looking for jobs, including those in the armed forces. Groups not in the labour force include disabled persons, full time housewives, retired （退休） people and students. And the labour force does not include discouraged ones who have given up looking for work because they think none can be got.
The United Nations uses the term “economically active population” instead of “labour force”. The economically active population includes people of all ages who hold jobs or are looking for jobs. The percentages of teenagers and old people in this group are much higher in many developing countries than they are in industrial countries.
1. Which of the following does the labour force include?| A．Those who serve in the government or in the army. |
| B．Those who are too old to go on working. |
| C．Those who have completely stopped looking for jobs. |
| D．Those who are not working and don’t try to get work. |
| A．the US has been an industrial country all along |
| B．the US labour force today is about 60 times as large as in 1800 |
| C．a nation’s development depends on the size and quality of its labour force |
| D．the greater the size of labour force of a nation is, the more advanced the nation will be |
| A．No teenagers in advanced countries are hired for pay. |
| B．“Labour force” in the USA and the UN “economically active population” don’t mean exactly the same thing. |
| C．Even in many developing countries most old people don’t have to work. |
| D．In industrial countries old people don’t have to work. |
| A．what labour force is |
| B．the importance of labour force |
| C．the changes in labour force |
| D．the difference between “labour force” and “economically active population” |
3 . All around the world, lawyers generate more hostility(敌视) than the members of any other profession-with the possible exception of journalism. But there are few places where clients have more grounds for complaint than America.
During the decade before the economic crisis, spending on legal services in America grew twice as fast as inflation. The best lawyers made skyscrapers-full of money, tempting ever more students to pile into law schools. But most law graduates never get a big-firm job. Many of them instead become the kind of nuisance-lawsuit filer that makes the tort system a costly nightmare.
There are many reasons for this. One is the excessive costs of a legal education. There is just one path for a lawyer in most American states: a four-year undergraduate degree in some unrelated subjects, then a three-year law degree at one of 200 law schools authorized by the American Bar Association and an expensive preparation for the bar exam. This leaves today’s average law-school graduate with $100,000 of debt on top of undergraduate debts. Law-school debt means that they have to work extremely hard.
Reforming the system would help both lawyers and their customers. Sensible ideas have been around for a long time, but the state-level bodies that govern the profession have been too conservative to implement(实施)them. One idea is to allow people to study law as an undergraduate degree. Another is to let students sit for the bar after only two years of law school. If the bar exam is truly a strict enough test for a would-be lawyer, those who can sit it earlier should be allowed to do so. Students who do not need the extra training could cut their debt mountain by a third. The other reason why costs are so high is the restrictive guild-like(行会) ownership structure of the business. Except in the District of Columbia, non-lawyers may not own any share of a law firm. This keeps fees high and innovation slow. There is pressure for change from within the profession, but opponents of change among the regulators insist that keeping outsiders out of a law firm isolates lawyers from the pressure to make money rather than serve clients ethically.
In fact, allowing non-lawyers to own shares in law firms would reduce costs and improve services to customers, by encouraging law firms to use technology and to employ professional managers to focus on improving firms’ efficiency. After all, other countries, such as Australia and Britain, have started liberalizing their legal professions. America should follow.
1. A lot of students take up law as their profession due to________| A．the growing demand from clients. | B．the increasing pressure of inflation. |
| C．the prospect of working in big firms. | D．the attraction of financial rewards. |
| A．Higher tuition fees for undergraduate studies. |
| B．Admissions approval from the bar association. |
| C．Pursuing a bachelor’s degree in another major. |
| D．Receiving training by professional associations. |
| A．Lawyers’ and clients’ strong resistance. |
| B．the rigid bodies governing the profession. |
| C．the stern exam for would-be lawyers. |
| D．non-professionals’ sharp criticism. |
| A．wrong ownership of America’s law firms and causes. |
| B．the factors that help make a successful lawyer in American. |
| C．a problem in America’s legal profession and solutions to it. |
| D．the role of undergraduate studies in America’s legal education. |
4 . Many factories and businesses around the globe have been struggling to deal with the severe economic realities of the recession(衰退), so they are having their employees take compulsory unpaid leave to save money. For some workers, their salaries have been cut by 20 percent, forced to stay home one out of every five working days. For some businesses, though, the economic downturn is actually a goldmine.
Instead of going out to fancy restaurants to dine with the whole family, many choose to stay at home. "People are eating out less and staying home more, which is driving our sales," reports Domino's Pizza chief manager Chris Moore. Pizza is very popular, and it is also very affordable for a family that has little extra money to spare. Domino's business in England rose 15 percent in the first six weeks this year compared with the previous year. Moore believes that the customers now will remain loyal when the financial situation rights itself. "By exceeding(超越) their expectations in terms of product quality and speed of delivery... these customers will stay with Domino's when the economy becomes better." said Moore.
Delivered pizza is not the only winner in the stay-at-home economy. Almost all online games have been reporting record-high income since the middle of 2008. Online games are designed to enable players to let off steam by interacting with each other socially in the comfort of their own homes. A Shanghai-based online game producer recently joked: "The game businesses are worried about economic recovery."
Another business that has boomed during the recession is camping equipment. Luxury vacations for families are down, but people still want to get away from their dull lives. This means that sales of tents, sleeping bags, and other outdoor equipment have gone up as families are trying to still have fun even though their bank accounts aren't as good as they once were. There have been reports that sales of fishing equipment are on the rise because many people believe this can help lower their grocery bills.
1. What is true about Domino's in economic hard times?| A．It is giving its employees a 20 percent cut. |
| B．It has added four or five new cheaper pizzas. |
| C．It has to close 15 percent of its stores. |
| D．Its business is increasing quite rapidly. |
| A．Save money. |
| B．Free one's feelings. |
| C．Kill another player online. |
| D．Make money from an online game. |
| A．By giving examples. |
| B．By showing a sequence. |
| C．By explaining causes and effects. |
| D．By making comparisons and contrasts. |
| A．Domino's Pizza | B．In-house Economy |
| C．Booming Businesses | D．Economic Recession |
If you want a quick look into the influence of Alibaba on daily Chinese life, take my experience. I moved to Beijing a year ago and quickly got tired of visiting small stores across the crowded, polluted city of 20 million people in search of new electronics, bathroom furnishings, and anything else my wife wanted. “You’re looking for what exactly? Why not try it? ” my Chinese teacher asked me one day. With that, my wonderful new relationship with Alibaba began.
Alibaba’s original business-to-business model now is second to consumer buying. Chinese retail(零售) buying makes up 80% of Alibaba’s profit, and leading that group is Taobao, with 800 million items(物品) for sale and the most unbelievable selection of things you’ll ever find. TMall.com is Alibaba’s other big site, where you can find brand name goods from Nike and Unilever near the lowest prices.
What I have a hard time explaining to friends and family back in the U.S. is how China has gone beyond traditional shopping — big-box retailers especially —in favor of online purchases on Taobao and a few other sites. In smaller towns than Beijing, where big retailers have not yet traveled, shopping online is shopping, and shopping is Taobao.
I have a list of some of my recent purchases on Taobao for a sense of how wide the marketplace is. Almost everything arrived a day or two after ordering with free shipping. I’m not even a big buyer, because I need friends to help me search the Chinese-language site. When I was searching my purchase history on my Chinese teacher’s iPad, which helps me buy goods, I looked through with great difficulty about 10 of her purchases for every one of mine.
1. Alibaba’s advantage mainly lies in .
| A．its business-to-business service |
| B．its big size |
| C．its not charging small sellers |
| D．its low price |
| A．Alibaba is of middle size among all the online sites. |
| B．Alibaba will continue to develop. |
| C．Alibaba acts as a bridge between the buyers and sellers. |
| D．Alibaba stands out as the best online site. |
| A．Alibaba’s business-to-business service earns more money than retail. |
| B．Taobao has no obvious advantage over other similar online sites. |
| C．TMall.com provides more profit than Taobao. |
| D．The author’s Chinese teacher is also an online purchase lover. |
| A．Shopping online in China is TaoBao. |
| B．Alibaba influences people’s daily purchase in China. |
| C．Shopping online goes beyond traditional shopping. |
| D．How the author purchases online in China. |
Now, it' s important for the managers in a company to understand what their customers want if they are going to develop effective marketing strategies (策略). There are various ways of doing this. One way at supermarkets, for example, is to interview customers while they're doing their shopping. They can be asked what they prefer to buy and then the results of the research can be studied. This provides information on which to base future marketing strategies. It' s also quite normal for top managers from department stores to spend a day or two each month visiting stores and mixing freely with the public, as if they were ordinary customers, to get an idea of how customers act.
Another way to get information from customers is to give them something. For example, some fast food restaurants give away tickets in magazines or on the street that permit customers to get part of their meal for nothing. As well as being a good way of attracting customers into the restaurants to spend their money, it also allows the managers to get a feel for where to attract customers and which age-groups to attract.
Another strategy used at some well-known parks such as Disneyland is for top managers to spend at least one day in their work, touring the park dressed as Mickey Mouse or something like that. This provides them with a perfect chance to examine the scene and watch the customers without being noticed.
1. The text is designed for _______
| A．customers | B．salesmen | C．researchers | D．managers |
| A．Visiting customers themselves. |
| B．Giving customers free food on the street. |
| C．Visiting parks as ordinary customers. |
| D．Asking customers questions at supermarkets. |
| A．Visiting Disneyland. | B．Wearing attractive clothes. |
| C．Acting Mickey Mouse. | D．Dressing up and walking around. |
| A．how to find out customers' social needs |
| B．how to develop marketing strategies |
| C．how to do market research |
| D．how to encourage customers to spend more money |
7 . Banks view online banking as a powerful “value-added” tool to attract and keep new customers while helping to eliminate costly paper handling or teller(出纳员)interactions in an increasingly competitive banking environment .
Today, most large national banks, many local banks and credit unions offer some form of online banking, variously known as PC banking, home banking, electronic banking or Internet banking. Online banks are sometimes referred to as “brick-to-click” banks, both to tell them from “brick-to-mortar” banks that haven’t yet offered online banking, as well as from “virtual”(虚拟)banks that have no physical branches or tellers whatsoever.
The challenge(挑战)for the banking industry has been to design this new service channel in such a way that its customers will readily learn to use and trust it. Most of the large banks can now offer fully safe, fully functional(功能的)online banking for free or for a small cost. As more banks succeed online and more customers use their sites, fully functional online banking will likely become as commonplace as automated teller machines (ATM).
Online banking has a lot of advantages. Unlike your corner bank, online banking sites never close; they’re at hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they’re a mouse click away. If you’re out of state or even out of the country when a money problem appears, you can log on instantly to your online bank and take care of business. Online bank sites generally carry out and confirm (确认)deals at or quicker than ATM processing speeds. Many online banking sites now offer fashionable tools to help you manage all of your valuable items more effectively.
1. The word “eliminate” in the first paragraph probably means “ ”.| A．keep | B．remove | C．reduce | D．improve |
| A．To make online banking attractive. | B．To open new services all over the world. |
| C．To offer online banking for free. | D．To take care of business 24 hours a day. |
| A．“brick-to-click” banks are in fact another kind of physical banks |
| B．the function of a “brick-to-click” bank is as common as that of an ATM |
| C．a “brick-to-mortar” bank is no better than a virtual one |
| D．customers can deal with their banking by a mouse click |
| A．Banking of Various Forms | B．Improvement of Banking Industry |
| C．Development of Online Banking | D．Functions of the “Brick-to-Click” Bank |
