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2 Supermarkets have helped push down prices mainly because of their scale. Like any big business, they can invest in IT systems that make them efficient. And their size allows them to buy in bulk. As supermarkets get bigger, the prices get lower.
3 Huge retail companies such as Wal-Mart have tremendous power and they can put pressure on producers to cut their margins. As a result, some producers have had to make cuts. In recent years, Unilever has cut its workforce by 33,000 to 245, 000 and dropped lots of its minor brands as part of its \
growth\strategy, Cadbury has shut nearly 20 percent of its 133 factories and cut 10 percent of its 55, 000 global workforce. These cuts help keep costs down, and the price of food stays low.
4 Does cheap food make people unhealthy? Cheap food may encourage people to eat more.Food companies certainly think that giving people more food for their money makes them buy more.Giving people bigger portions is an easy way of making them feel they have got a better deal.That is why portions have got larger and larger. In America, soft drinks came in oz(225)cans in the past,then 12oz ( 350g), and now come in 20oz (550g) cans. If a company can sell you an 8oz portion for $ 7,they can sell you a 12oz portion for $8.The only extra cost to the company is the food,which probably costs 25 cents.
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5 Now companies are under pressure to stop selling bigger portions for less money. But it is hard to change the trend.
23. Paragraph 1____ _
24. Paragraph 2____ _
25. Paragraph 3____ _
26. Paragraph 4____ _
A. Bigger supermarkets offer lower prices
B. Chain stores provide better service
C. Technology helps reduce food prices
D. Huge retailers force producers to cunt costs
E. Consumers like supermarkets
F. Food comes cheaper in larger portions
27. Big supermarkets can offer food at lower prices because they can buy in___.
28. Some food producers have reduced___.
29. Besides cutting its workforce, Unilever also abandoned its___.
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30. Buyers like bigger portions because they think they have got___.
A. minor brands
B. a good bargin
C. large quantities
D. their workforce
E. huge portions
F. their money
参考答案：
23 C 24 A25 D 26 F 27 C 28 D 29 A 30 B
第4部分：阅读理解(第31~45题，每题3分，共45分)
下面有3篇短文，每篇短文后有5道题。请根据短文内容，为每题确定1个最佳选项。
第一篇From Ponzi to Madoff
The year was 1920. The country was the United States of America.The man's name
was Charles Ponzi.Ponzi told people to stop depositing money in a savings account.
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Instead, they should give it to him to save for them.Ponzi promised to pay them more than the bank.For example, a savings account might pay you $5 a year for every $100 you deposit. Ponzi, however,would pay you $40 a year for every $100 you gave him to hold.Many people thought this was a good plan. They began to give their money to Ponzi.
How could Ponzi make so much money for people? This is what he did with the money people gave him: He used some of that money to pay other people who gave him money.
However, he also kepta lot of the money for himself. Soon he had $250 million. This was a kind of theft, and it'was against the law.The peop1e who gave him their money didn’t think anything was wrong.Ponzi paid them every month,just like a bank. Ponzi continued this way of working for two years.Then one day,he did not have enough money to pay all the people.They discovered his crime,and he went to prison for fraud.
Ninety years later,people began to hear about a businessman in New York named Bernard Madoff,People said he gave good advice about money.They said when they gave him their money, he paid them a lot more than the bank. Madoff helped hospitals, schools,and individuals earn money. Over a period of 40 years, people gave him $170 billion.However, no one investigated what he did with the
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money. The people who gave Madoff their money also didn't think anything was wrong because he paid them every month.
One day, Madoff didn't have enough money to pay all the people he needed to pay.That's when people discovered how Madoff worked:He was taking money from some people to pay other people, just the way Charles Ponzi did. However, this time, instead of losing millions of dollars, people lost billions.
Madoff was accused of fraud, and United States govemment officials arrested him. He didn't have to go on trial because he said he was guilty. In 2009, a judge sentenced him to 150 years in prison. Bernard Madoff's crime was even bigger than Ponzi's. It was'the biggest fraud in history. The lesson of this story is clear: When something seems too good to be true, it probably is!
31. For every $100, Ponzi promised to pay people ____ _ .
A. $5 a year.
B. $20 a year.
C. $40 a year.
D. $100 a year.
32. What did Ponzi do with the money people gave him?
A. He spent it all on things for himself.
2012年职称英语考试综合类B级试题及参考答案
