| A．Some butter. | B．Some milk. | C．Some bread. |
2 . Letters to customers
Letter 1Dear Mr Johnson,
Thanks for your long-term trust. We take great pleasure in announcing that our latest product, the 1000-watt home theater system, has come onto the market.
The device comes with five speakers. It is Bluetooth-enabled and has a USB port. The sound quality and picture quality are outstanding.
Grab yours today! Contact us at 999-999-999.
Helen
Letter 2Dear Miss Turner,
We are grateful for your good review of our printer. To express our thanks, we’d like to give you a special offer. In the upcoming three months, you will get one free cartridge (墨盒) for any three that you buy. It also applies to any paper you buy.
Please show this note to us when you visit our store. It will make sure you can get the offer and a significant discount on other products.
Call us at 333-555-999 if you have any questions.
Nicholas
Letter 3Dear Mr Davis,
We’d like to congratulate you on the ownership of the new mountain bike. This bike is the first to succeed in all the standard safety tests set by the Cycling Association of America. You can get a free bike repair service within the first month of your purchase.
We also trade in old and new bikes. For more information, call us at 223-334-445.
Bob
Letter 4Dear Miss Smith,
I am delighted that you are satisfied with the washer and dryer purchased from our store.
If you experience any damage within the first six months of your purchase, we will repair them at no cost. After that, we offer competitive rates to ensure your continued satisfaction.
Please feel free to contact us at 111-222-111 for any further information.
Amy
1. What’s Helen’s purpose in writing to Mr Johnson?| A．To show her trust. |
| B．To confirm an order. |
| C．To promote a new product. |
| D．To seek opinions on their product. |
| A．Give praise for the cartridge. |
| B．Bring the note to the store. |
| C．Buy at least four cartridges. |
| D．Recommend the printer to others. ‘ |
| A．Both offer free maintenance. |
| B．Both stress the safety of products. |
| C．Both display competitive product rates. |
| D．Both involve the trade of new and old products. |
3 . “Few articles change owners more frequently than clothes. They travel downwards from grade to grade in the social scale with remarkable regularity,” wrote the journalist Adolphe Smith in 1877 as he traced a coat’s journey in the last century: cleaned, repaired and resold repeatedly; cut down into a smaller item; eventually recycled into new fabric. But with the improvement in people’s living standards, that model is mind-boggling in the era of fast fashion. The average British customer buys four items a month. And it is reported that 350,000 tonnes of used but still wearable clothes go to landfills in the UK each year.
Yet the gradual revival of the second-hand trade has gathered pace in the past few years. At fashion website Asos, sales of vintage clothes (古董衫) have risen by 92%. Clothing was once worn out of necessity, and now it is simply a way of life. Busy families sell used items on eBay, teenagers trade on Depop and some fashion people offer designer labels on Vestiaire Collective. Strikingly, it has become big enough business that mainstream retailers (零售商) want a slice of the action.
For some buyers and sellers, the switch to the second-hand is born of financial difficulties. Only a few have become worried about the impact of their shopping habit on the planet. But the shift is only a partial solution. Some people worry that some mainstream brands may “greenwash” — using second-hand goods to improve their image, rather than engaging more seriously with sustainability.
However, the biggest concern may be that people keep buying because they know they can resell goods, still chasing the pleasure of the next purchase but with an eased conscience (愧疚). Boohoo, a powerful fast fashion company, has seen sales and profits rise, despite concerns about environmental problems in its supply chain that led to an investigation last year.
A new Netflix series, Worn Stories, documents the emotional meanings that clothes can have: Each old item is full of memories. Actually, a handbag from a grandmother and a scarf passed on by a father are both valuable for us. A love of style is not a bad or an unimportant thing. But a committed relationship is better than a quick flash. Can we learn to appreciate our own old clothes as well as others’?
1. What does the word “mind-boggling” underlined in paragraph 1 probably mean?| A．Unbelievable. | B．Popular. | C．Reasonable. | D．Influential. |
| A．old clothes are more popular than new pieces |
| B．the online second-hand markets are booming |
| C．the fashion world begins to favor vintage clothes |
| D．many clothing brands are innovative in their new products |
| A．It makes people feel free to pursue fast fashion. |
| B．It makes people more cautious about their budgets. |
| C．It encourages people to choose eco-friendly clothes. |
| D．It pushes people to be more engaged with sustainability. |
| A．Old items have lost favor with the public. |
| B．Old items are worthy of being long cherished. |
| C．Older generations attach great importance to old items. |
| D．Older generations care about the quality of their clothes. |
4 . A study from 2010 said that raising prices by 1% without losing sales can increase profits by 8.7% on average. Getting the prices right can be difficult. Set them too high and you lose customers; set them too low and you leave money on the table.
To make more money, shopkeepers have been turning to price-optimization (优化) systems that predict how customers will respond to price changes. These systems are becoming cleverer thanks to advances in artificial intelligence (AI). While older systems used historical sales data to estimate (估计) price sensitivity for individual goods, the latest AI-powered systems can find relationships between multiple goods. These AI-powered systems use big data to estimate price sensitivity — how much demand increases as the price falls or how much demand decreases as the price goes up-for thousands of products. Price-sensitive (价格敏感的) goods can then be discounted and price-insensitive ones marked up.
All this makes pricing systems “much more three-dimensional”, observes Chad Yoes, the pricing official at Walmart, a supermarket. In February, Starbucks, a chain of coffee shops, expressed pride in its use of AI to price products “on an ongoing basis”. US Foods, a food company, says its pricing system can promote sales and profits.
Price-optimization may make prices change more. “Shopkeepers are pricing faster today than they ever have before,” says Matt Pavich of Revionics, a pricing-software firm. That is especially true in the fast-moving world of e-commerce. But even Walmart changes the prices of many items in its stores 2-4 times a year, says Mr Yoes. up from once or twice a few years ago.
Sysco, a food company, says the AI-powered system allows it to lower prices on “key value items” and raise prices on other products. It can thus increase profits by expanding sales while maintaining profits. That keeps investors content and shoppers sweet.
1. What can be learned from the first paragraph?| A．It is sometimes difficult to set the right prices. |
| B．Getting the prices right can make you lose customers. |
| C．Raising prices by 1% always leads to an 8.7% increase in profits. |
| D．The study from 2010 suggests that you leave money on the table. |
| A．They are more price-sensitive. |
| B．They make prices change more. |
| C．They can predict price sensitivity for individual goods. |
| D．They are able to identify links between various products. |
| A．Starbucks coffee. | B．Price-insensitive goods. |
| C．Walmart’s online goods. | D．Sysco’s “key value items”. |
| A．Apply AI to Set Prices | B．Raise Prices to Increase Profits |
| C．Reduce Prices to Promote Sales | D．Use AI to Predict Customer Response |
5 . Paisley is a distinctive pattern used to decorate fabrics and make countless clothes lively. This pattern also has a uniquely rich history dating back hundreds of years, spreading across multiple continents.
Paisley's most obvious feature is the large swooshing (涡旋) shapes called boteh. Many experts believe the shape is actually an artistically designed tree, which was a powerful religious symbol in India for thousands of years. Besides, the pattern could also represent flowers, the sun, a phoenix, or even an eagle. The exact meaning is lost to history, even though the pattern lives on.
The pattern eventually made its way to the Western world in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it became the height of fashion for the time. Silk scarves bearing the pattern could be as expensive as a small house. Owing to its popularity, especially in Great Britain, it was quickly duplicated and mass-produced. One of the major manufacturing centers of the pattern was Paisley. Scotland, which is how the pattern got its English name.
In the early 20th century, the popularity of the pattern faded for a time. Eventually, it exploded back onto the fashion scene with the help of a surprising force: rock 'n' roll. It started in the 1960s with the Beatles, who not only wore paisley but used patterns in colorful artwork. Other rock legends like the Rolling Stones, Janice Joplin, and David Bowie kept the trend going well into the 1970s. Paisley was suddenly cool and glamorous again, at least temporarily.
Since then, however, the popularity of the pattern has slowly declined. It still pops up on fashion runways and as a colorful accessory (配饰) for some clothes, but paisley is just one of many elegant patterns. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean it won't make a comeback again.
1. According the text, what is boteh?| A．A universal symbol of art. | B．A sacred tree planted in India. |
| C．The typical shape found in paisley. | D．The manufacturing process of paisley. |
| A．Transformed. | B．Protected. | C．Abolished. | D．Copied. |
| A．They preserved the value of paisley. |
| B．They studied the history of fashion. |
| C．They helped paisley regain its popularity. |
| D．They looked extremely cool and glamorous. |
| A．It won't withdraw entirely from the fashion world. |
| B．It was discovered in Britain and thus got its English name. |
| C．It has been regarded as a typical representative of pop culture. |
| D．It demonstrates the close connection between religion and fashion. |
