1、大学英语六级-157 及答案解析(总分：100.00，做题时间：90 分钟)一、Reading Comprehensio(总题数：5，分数：100.00)Shopping and the Internet, Making It ClickA. Terry Lundgren and Kevin Ryan know and like each other. But when it comes to the future of retailing the boss of Macy“s, an American department-store giant, and the chief executi
2、ve of Gilt Groupe, an online retailer, disagree wildly. Mr. Lundgren remains a firm believer in an empire of bricks and mortar (实体店). Mr. Ryan is betting big on online-only selling. B. “It used to be mail-order catalogues killing physical stores, then it was TV shopping and now it is online retail,“
3、 says Mr. Lundgren. Although he will not be pinned down on whether the Internet is a threat to shopkeepers or an opportunity for them, he is convinced that his chain is on the right path. Macy“s is embracing “omnichannel“ integration, that is, selling stuff on television, through mail-order catalogu
4、es and online, as well as keeping its department stores. The company runs 810 shops across America under the mid-price, mid-market Macy“s brand and 38 more luxurious Bloomingdale“s outlets. Mr. Ryan argues that bricks-and-mortar shops are gravely threatened by Amazon and other online-only retailers,
5、 and says he can see “no evidence that there are big opportunities for traditional retailers in online retail.“ C. Overall, retail sales in America are pretty flat, so the double-digit growth of online sellers is coming at the expense of physical shops. Amazon“s sales in the past year were $48 billi
6、on, compared with Macy“s $26 billion. Last year online sales in America reached $188 billion, about 8% of total retail sales. They are forecast to reach $270 billion by 2015. So far, Mr. Lundgren has good reason not to worry that the sky is falling. Most relevant for Mr. Lundgren“s debate with his f
7、riendly rival, online sales from the websites of Macy“s and Bloomingdale“s jumped by 40%. This reflects Macy“s efforts to expand its online business. It is building a new logistics (物流) center for online sales in West Virginia and expanding an existing one in Tennessee. And it is fixing a glaring fl
8、aw in its Internet-sales operation: until now online shoppers have only been able to buy goods in Macy“s warehouses; soon they will be able to order items from the stock of its stores. Magic mirrors and Facebook friends D. Mr. Lundgren is keen to continue experimenting with ways to use the Internet.
9、 In 2010 Macy“s introduced a virtual fitting room where customers tried on digital representations of clothes through their reflection in a “magic mirror“ and shared them with their friends on Facebook. “It didn“t work,“ admits Mr. Lundgren. So Macy“s is now trying out virtual models. With its thriv
10、ing Internet business, Macy“s is ahead of many other retailers. E. Walmart, the world“s biggest, waited for a long time and hesitated over its online strategy until it finally decided to “make winning of e-commerce a key priority“, as Mike Duke, its chief executive, puts it. Like an increasing numbe
11、r of store chains, Walmart is inviting online shoppers to pick up their purchases from its physical stores if that suits them. Since last June they have been able to do so on the day they place their order. Now, says Joel Anderson, who runs the company“s online business, more than half of Internet o
12、rders are collected from stores. The company claims this is saving shoppers millions of dollars in delivery charges. In spite of these recent improvements, Walmart is not yet reaping big profits from its online business. It does not break out its Internet sales from the total, but they are still tin
13、y for its size. F. There are some retailers, in particular those at the extremes of the market, that can safely ignore the threat from shoppers“ migration to the Internet. At the luxury end, Yves Saint Laurent is unlikely to start selling its ball gowns over the net; at the cost-conscious end, dolla
14、r stores will continue “piling it high and selling it cheap“. But the vast majority of retailers in between may have little choice but to counter the rise of online-only rivals by creating strong Internet operations of their own. The biggest threat to most of them is Amazon, the undisputed champion
15、of online selling. Other online-only retailers have little chance of felling this giant. Their best bet is to be distinctive. G. Mr. Ryan“s Gilt Groupe is modeled on France“s Vente Prive, an online shopping club for expensive branded stuff at reduced prices. The customers“ average age for Mr. Ryan“s
16、 business is 34. Consumers aged 24 to 35 already do about a quarter of their shopping online, says John Deighton of Harvard Business School. In Mr. Deighton“s view the Internet-retail revolution is over, in that online buying is well established and will only keep growing. However, he says it is unc
17、lear how important a sales tool social networks like Facebook and Twitter, to which some online retailers are pinning their hopes, will turn out to be. H. Some bricks-and-mortar retailers have already had disappointing experiences trying to sell through social media. Over the past year GAP, J. C. Pe
18、nney and Nordstrom have opened and closed storefronts on Facebook. The social-networking site, which this month filed for an IPO (首次公开募股), is trying hard to be a top shopping destination for its 845m members. Yet so far people still tend to visit Facebook to socialize with their friends. Shopping by
19、 smartphone I. What does seem clear is that as personal computing goes mobile people are buying more via smart phones. Four years ago hardly anyone bought things on their mobile devices but today nearly one-quarter of Gilt Groupe“s revenue comes from smart phone shoppers; on some weekends the propor
20、tion reaches 40%. Nearly one third of people living in America own a smart phone, and 70% of these use it to do searches while they are inside a shop, usually to compare prices. “By 2014 mobile Internet will overtake desktop Internet usage for shopping,“ predicts Nigel Morris, chief executive of Aeg
21、is Media Americas. Order online, pay cash in store J. The most clued-up shopkeepers realize that they must make the most of such advantages over online rivals, and that to do so they must make their stores more enjoyable places to visit. In 2010 Macy“s company launched a training programme for its m
22、ore than 130,000 sales people, “MAGIC Selling“, which coached them to be more helpful and friendlier with customers. It is tailoring the merchandise stocked in its stores more closely to local tastes. Retailers with lavishly furnished stores and helpful assistants will increasingly have to put up wi
23、th free-riders who come into the shop to check out the products and get some advice, before sneaking away to buy them for less online. Have you got this in my size? K. However, there is no single recipe for retailing success in the Internet age. Retailers will need to balance their investment betwee
24、n staff, locations, inventory and online operations, says Jos Alvarez of Harvard Business School. For some expensive products it makes sense to have a low inventory, a big investment in showrooms, elaborate online operations and well qualified sales people. For more commoditized items it is more imp
25、ortant to have a big inventory than a flashy display. Things that are increasingly being bought online must be swept off the shelves to make way for products that people still want to examine and compare before buying. L. Whatever priorities retailers set, their physical stores are likely to shrink
26、as the share of sales made online keeps rising. The retailers who want to survive the drift online are the ones “listening to the dynamic demands of customers,“ says Walmart“s Mr. Anderson. (选自 The Economist)（分数：20.00）(1).John Deighton of Harvard Business School thinks that shopping online is well e
27、stablished.（分数：2.00）(2).Mr. Lundgren believes at present physical stores are threatened by online retail.（分数：2.00）(3).Mr. Anderson suggests the retailers who want to survive the drift online should change with the dynamic demands of customers.（分数：2.00）(4).In 2010, Macy“s not only starts “MAGIC Selli
28、ng“, but also adjusts its goods in the stores to local tastes.（分数：2.00）(5).The retailers selling moderate-price goods are influenced most when customers begin to buy goods online.（分数：2.00）(6).The virtual fitting room introduced by Macy“s in 2010 turned out to be useless.（分数：2.00）(7).According to Jos
29、 Alvarez, when retailers sell high-price products, they should hire excellent sales people.（分数：2.00）(8).The smart phones will replace desktop for shopping online by 2014.（分数：2.00）(9).Macy“s defect being corrected in online sales operation is that its only source of goods for online customers is the
30、warehouses.（分数：2.00）(10).In its online strategy, Walmart finally put “to succeed in the business“ in the first place after considering for a long time.（分数：2.00）How Customs WorkA. One of the little rituals all international travelers go through is customs. To most people, this is just another stop in
31、 an airport or a minor inconvenience at a country“s borders. But when you go through customs, you are actually taking part in a key component of the global economy. B. A nation“s customs service has many responsibilities. At its most basic level, its purpose is to regulate what comes into and goes o
32、ut of a country. The foremost element of this regulation is controlling international trade. The concept of trade is as old as civilization itself. If my tribe has a huge supply of bananas, and your tribe has a huge supply of fur, we will trade goods so that both our tribes can eat and both can keep
33、 warm. In the modern world, international trade is based on money, but it works in pretty much the same way. C. Any nation wants its own businesses to do well, so most of the time they prefer their people buy domestic goods over competing foreign goods. But in many cases, goods are available cheaper
34、 in another country than in your country, and people naturally want to buy them at the lower price. To tilt the balance in favor of domestic businesses, governments impose tariffs, also called duty, on foreign goods coming into the country. D. In addition to encouraging domestic trade, duty also giv
35、es the nation a “piece of the action“ when somebody buys something produced overseas. Customs agencies are often major sources of revenue for the government. The US Customs Service, for example, brings in more money than any other government office except the Internal Revenue Service. To control spe
36、cific sorts of trade, a government may impose a higher tariff on certain types of goods (alcohol, for example). Certain countries may join together to work out mutually beneficial trade agreements, enabling businesses in those nations to trade more freely with each other than they can with businesse
37、s in other nations. This gives an advantage to nations that a country has a good relationship with. E. Customs agencies also monitor what is being exported from a country. For example, most governments strictly regulate what weapons can be exported to other nations. This is simply a common-sense saf
38、ety measure: It“s not a good idea to arm enemy nations, so the government has to know who is buying any domestically-produced weaponry. As we“ll see later on, customs agencies also pay careful attention to how much money citizens are transporting out of the country. F. Duty charges have a huge effec
39、t on big businesses, which may import millions of dollars worth of goods every year. To regulate trade on this level, a country“s customs agency must keep track of all shipments that come into the nation“s ports or cross its borders. They can“t check every bit of foreign cargo, of course, so agents
40、pick certain boxes to inspect and certain shipments to scrutinize. In an effort to speed up the process, the US Customs Service is implementing new, computerized systems for processing shipments and charging in, porters. G. While large businesses are the main importers in a country, trade restrictio
41、ns also apply to the individual traveler. When you bring home souvenirs (纪念品) from another country, you are actually importing goods. In the United States and many other countries, the customs agency grants each traveler a nominal duty exemption (免除) to allow them to bring back a reasonable amount o
42、f goods without having to pay tariffs. H. In most countries, it isn“t feasible for the customs agency to check all of the goods that every single traveler is importing, so governments have to depend largely on people“s honesty. When you enter a country, you are asked to truthfully report what goods
43、you are importing and make a good faith estimate of their value. They don“t put their entire trust in people“s good character, of course; customs performs a thorough search of some percentage of all travelers. I. Some customs agencies decide which travelers to search based on random chance. You are
44、asked to press a button on a machine that activates a random number generator. Depending on the number that comes up, either a green light comes on and you can pass through or a red light comes on and the agent searches your bags. Other customs agencies decide who to search based solely on intuition
45、. After many years on the job, a customs agent develops a keen eye for people who are up to no good. Unlike the police, customs agents are fully authorized to search your luggage, clothes and even your body without any warrant or reason for suspicion. Customs agents often work side-by-side with immi
46、gration officials, and in some ports of entry, one inspector may represent both agencies. But at its core, a customs agency is concerned with the things that are coming in and out of a country, rather than the travelers themselves. J. In addition to monitoring legal imports, a nation“s customs agenc
47、y also works to keep out illegal or contraband (违禁品) items. Customs agencies must fight the flow of illegal materials across borders. In addition to drugs, customs agencies may watch for weaponry, child pornography (色情资料), counterfeit merchandise and stolen goods. They also watch for people carrying
48、 illegally gained money across borders. These sorts of illegal materials make up only one category of contraband goods. Customs agents also stop the importation of legal goods that are a threat to the nation“s security. In most countries, the importation of fruits, meats, animals and plants is heavi
49、ly regulated due to the fear of disease or ecological imbalance. While it may seem strange that a piece of fruit is considered a threat to national security, the risk of biological contamination is very real. In the late 1980s, one traveler with one piece of contaminated fruit caused an infestation (大量滋生) of Mediterranean fruit flies that destroyed millions of dollars worth of crops in California. K. Some completely harmless items are deemed contraband simply because of the country they come from. If country A is considered to be a national enemy of country B, or has a record of violating i
