Americans with small families own a small car or a large one. If both parents are working, they usually have two cars. When the family becomes large, one of their cars is sold and they will buy a van.
A small car can hold four persons and a large car can hold six persons but it is very crowded. A van can hold seven persons easily, so a family of three children could ask their grandparents to go on a holiday travel. They could all travel together.
Mr. Hagen and his wife had a third child last year. This made them sell a second car and buy a van. The sixth and seventh seats are used to put other things, for a family of five must carry many suitcases when they travel. When they arrive at their grandparents’ home, the suitcases are brought into the two seats. The van can then carry the grandparents.
Americans call vans motor homes. A motor home is always used for holidays. When a family are traveling to the mountains or to the seaside, they can live in their motor home for a few days or weeks. All the members of a big family can enjoy a happier life when they are traveling together. That is why motor homes have become very popular. In America there are many parks for motor homes.
【小题1】The word “van” in this text probably means ________.A.住房汽车 | B.机动车辆 | C.移动家庭 | D.大型卡车 |
A.sold their old house | B.sold their second car |
C.moved to their grandparents’ home | D.built a new place for a van |
A.a baby | B.much money | C.more than two children | D.interest in vans |
A.to visit their grandparents at weekends |
B.to drive their children to school every day |
C.to travel with all the family members for holidays |
D.to do some shopping with all the family members |
A.they can take people to some other cities |
B.big families can take more things along |
C.some people think motor homes are cheap |
D.they can bring families a much happier life |
Do you like shopping? For shopaholics in the UK, the place to head to used to be the “high street”. It was the place where you could find familiar fashion brands and essential everyday items in the centre of a town. But change in our shopping habits has taken its toll on the British high street.
News about shops losing money and shutting is now common. Some city-centre department stores have closed and even long-established retailers (零售商) have reported profit slumps. According to a recent survey, a record 2,481 shops disappeared from UK high streets last year — up by 40 percent.
As the BBC’s Emma Simpson writes, things have become a lot harder for traditional retailers in recent years. They have faced rising costs from wages, business rates and the requirement to introduce Europe’s new data law. But the biggest threat has come from online shopping. She says “Consumers now spend one in every five pounds online — and if businesses are seeing 20 percent fewer sales on the shop floor, as well as their fixed costs rising, then profit margins will be squeezed.”
While some of us like to window shop — browsing for things to buy, only to purchase them online at a discount — the fact is that, overall, shoppers are making fewer visits to high streets. Eventually, town centres could become like ghost towns. If people aren’t out and about shopping, they won't use other services, like cafes, restaurants and cinemas, which leads to job losses. The high street has also suffered from the arrival of big shopping malls, which offer a retail experience under one roof, with free parking, away from the bad weather!
Meanwhile, back on the high street, some shops still exist. Analysts have said it's those that have moved away from traditional retailing that are surviving. These include beauty salons, nail bars and independent coffee shops — but are these kinds of shops enough to keep the British high street open for business?
【小题1】What do we know about “high street” according to the passage?A.It sold only fashionable daily items. |
B.It has changed people’s shopping habits. |
C.It was a big shopping mall in downtown Britain. |
D.It was the destination for people who love shopping in the UK. |
A.Sharp fall. | B.Steady rise. |
C.Slow increase. | D.Slight loss. |
A.The rising costs from wages. |
B.The boom of window shopping. |
C.The popularity of shopping online, |
D.The introduction of Europe’s new data law. |
A.Discounts are offered to attract more consumers. |
B.Parking is free of charge in time of bad weather. |
C.Better service is provided to satisfy the customers. |
D.Some conventional retailer turn to other businesses. |
Healthy See, Healthy Do
Visit the grocery store on an empty stomach, and you will probably come home with a few things you did not plan to buy. But hunger is not the only cause of additional purchases. The location of store displays (摆放) also influences our shopping choices.
The checkout area is a particular hotspot for junk food. Studies have found that the products most commonly found there are sugary and salty snacks.
Adjoian and her colleagues wondered if such findings would apply to their city’s crowded urban checkout areas, so they selected three Bronx supermarkets for their own study.
Of the more than 2,100 shoppers they observed, just 4 percent bought anything from the checkout area. Among those who did, however, customers in the healthy lines purchased nutritious foods more than twice as often as those in the standard lines.
The potential influence may seem small, but Adjoian believes that changing more checkout lines would open customers’ eyes to nutritious, lower-calorie foods. Health department officials are now exploring ways to expand healthy options at checkout counters throughout New York City.
A.These foods give people more energy. |
B.They bought unhealthy foods 40 percent less often. |
C.And it may make or break some healthy eating habits. |
D.The supermarkets began to offer nutritious, lower-calorie foods. |
E.These findings caught the attention of New York City Department of Health. |
F.They replaced candies and cookies with fruits and nuts near the checkout counter. |
G.And a few studies have suggested that simply swapping in healthier options can change customer behavior. |
More and more online shopping platforms now offer consumers a detailed look into products’ historical prices. But how does this information influence buying decisions?
To explore this question, we conducted a series of experiments with a total of more than 5,000 business school students and working adults. We measured the impact of different kinds of price shifts on people’s interest in purchasing products and identified several consistent trends:
First, when consumers saw that the price today was lower than it had been in the past, they were more likely to buy now, because the current price seemed like a good deal.
However, the picture gets more complicated when you consider the frequency of historical price shifts: In our studies, we found that if consumers were shown at least three changes in the same direction, they were likely to assume the price would continue to move in the same direction. While if they were only shown one or two changes in the same direction, they expected the price to change in the opposite direction.
So what does this mean for sellers? It may be tempting to slowly lower the price over time. However, our data shows that this can lead consumers to assume that the price will continue to fall, making them hesitant to buy. But if they just see a single price drop, they ‘re more likely to expect a reversal in the near future, pushing them to buy the product now.
Our findings can also help buyers make more informed decisions about whether and when they choose to make a purchase. As with any irrational bias (非理性的偏见), awareness of the natural tendency to expect trends to continue and single large changes to reverse can help consumers question this assumption before acting on it. Instead of letting this arbitrary (武断的) expectation guide buying decisions, consumers may benefit by doing a bit more research around the underlying factors driving price shifts. Buyers may also benefit from learning more about a product’s longer-term price history, fluctuations (波动), and typical industry-wide price ranges, to avoid being disproportionately influenced by near-term price changes. It’s also always a good idea to think about both how urgent your need for a given product is, and your own risk tolerance for a potential price increase, as this can affect whether it’s worth it for you to wait and see if the price falls.
Of course, there are countless factors that influence both consumers’ decisions around whether and when to buy and sellers’ decisions around how to price their products. But it’s important for both sides to recognize the key role that expectations play in influencing these decisions.
【小题1】Which of the following is true about the experiment?A.It proves that people’s interest in the product drives the purchasing behavior. |
B.E-commerce platforms turn to it to connect with customers and boost sales. |
C.It’s designed to figure out the purchasing decision process based on pricing. |
D.Business school students make up the whole control group for comparison. |
A.![]() | B.![]() |
C.![]() | D.![]() |
A.decide on the assumptions that long-term price trend will continue |
B.research longer-term price history, price ranges and hidden factors |
C.put off the purchase for better deals because of the unsustainable market |
D.cooperate with sellers while putting aside the personal risk and urgency |
A.How do price changes influence buying decisions? |
B.Why should products’ historical prices be shown? |
C.When is the best time for consumers to purchase? |
D.What do businesses need to price their products? |
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