1 . You’ve probably heard that brick-and-mortar retail(实体零售) is in trouble. Even industry giants are closing hundreds of stores. Given retail’s gradual change from physical stores to mobile and e-commerce(电子商务), you may be wondering, “What will retail look like in the future?” Nobody knows. But here are a few things you can expect to see based on current technology.
Super-fast delivery is coming. Today, the normal practice is two-day delivery. But if you’ve been paying attention, you know that’s changing. In fact, up to 25% of consumers said that they would abandon their orders if one-day delivery wasn’t available. Of course, that’s just the beginning. Two-hour delivery is coming in the foreseeable future, and Amazon has already been trying 30-minute delivery.
Your kitchen will resupply itself. You won’t have to worry about running out of essentials like coffee, pet food or snacks because your containers will sense stocks(库存) and replace those items without you having to lift a finger. No more waking up to find your coffee store is empty or last-minute rush to the grocery store because you forget to buy pet food.
Know exactly what’s in stock and where to get it. Have you ever gone to a store hoping to buy something, only to learn that it was out of stock? A new feature from Google Home allows people to ask the Google Assistant to find in-stock products at the closest store. For example: “Google, where can I find the Nintendo Switch console?” The assistant will tell you how many stores have it right away and how close they are. Of course, it isn’t currently available for all stores in all locations, but you can already see the future when it has become standard.
Convenience, experience, and options-retail will take on a new look.
1. How does the author develop the passage?| A．By analyzing and commenting. |
| B．By clarifying and describing. |
| C．By asking and answering. |
| D．By comparing and concluding. |
| A．It is possible to deliver goods within two hours in the future. |
| B．Consumers can’t get their orders in one day now. |
| C．The delivery will be in two days in the future. |
| D．Super-fast delivery has widely been used now. |
| A．Retail will disappear gradually. |
| B．Industrial giants will rule the whole retail trade. |
| C．People will ask the Google Assistant to purchase goods. |
| D．Shopping will be more convenient and effective. |
| A．How Will New Technology Change the World? |
| B．What Will Retail Be Like in the Future? |
| C．How Will We Run the Retail Trade in the Future? |
| D．What Benefits Will High-tech Bring in the Future? |
2 . Is there anybody out there? For centuries humans have wondered although the ways in which we have gone about this have varied. As we have gained a greater understanding of the universe, our searches have taken on more concrete(具体的) forms. Questions about aliens(外星人) have become a subject for science rather than science fiction.
Now new cooperation between the Very Large Array (VLA) observatory in New Mexico and the SETI Institute in California means that our curiosity about whether aliens exist can be closer than ever before to being satisfied. Data from the VLA’S 28 radio telescopes, used to scan a vast area of sky, will be fed through a special supercomputer that will search for distant signals.
How likely it is that a signal will be found, and what this might mean, are hard questions to answer. SETI’s existing projects have not discovered any signals from other planets so far. But recent discoveries in space and Earth sciences have provided some encouragement for those who are enthusiastic about the possibility, however remote, of detecting other civilizations.
Once it was thought that our solar system could be unique. Since the discovery of the first exoplanet (a planet beyond the solar system) in the 1990s, thousands more have been located. Around one in five stars is now thought to have a planet in their orbit(运行轨道) in a so-called “habitable(适合居住的) zone”—that is, at a distance from the star where the temperature means that life is theoretically possible.
Are Earth’s 7.5 billion humans, along with billions of other animals and plants they share their home with, on their own in the universe? If there is another life form somewhere, could it be as intelligent as humans? Or could it threaten them? I think all of these need further exploration. As explorations of Mars continue, and a new set of observations from the James Webb Space Telescope are set to begin, our interest in the possibility of alien life appears as much as before.
1. Why does the VLA work with SETI?| A．To develop new radio telescopes | B．To find evidence of aliens’ existence |
| C．To build a special supercomputer | D．To search for distant signals |
| A．Life does indeed exist on exoplanets |
| B．New technologies are employed to find aliens |
| C．Some exoplanets may have habitable zones |
| D．Signals have been discovered from other planets |
| A．Uncertain | B．Positive | C．Unacceptable | D．Worried |
| A．Space: the unknown place | B．Finding aliens: possible or not? |
| C．Receiving signals: aliens appear again? | D．Exoplanets: home of aliens |
