第三版中级口译听力教程.docVIP

中级口译听力教程第三版1A An intermediate course of English listening. Third edition. Unit one. Part one. Shopping over the internet. 3. Exercises. 1. Listen to a passage about a new mode of shopping, and then choose the correct answer to each question you hear. In 2005 consumers could purchase virtually anything over the internet, books, compact discs, and even stocks were available from world wide web sites that seem to spring up almost daily. A few years earlier some people had predicted that consumers accustomed to shopping in stores would be reluctant to buy things that they could not see or touch in person. For growing number of time starved consumers however, shopping from their home computer was proving to be a convenient alternative to driving to the store. A research estimated that in 2008 US consumers would purchase 7.3 billion dollars of goods over the internet, double the 2006 total. Finding a bargain was getting easier owing to the rise of online auctions, and websites that did comparison shopping on the internet for the best deal. For all the consumer interest, retailing in cyber space was still a largely unprofitable business however. Internet pioneer A which began selling books in 1995 and later branched into recorded music and videos posted revenue of 153.7 million dollars, in the third quarter of this year, up from 37.9 million dollars in the same period of 2002. Overall however, the company’s loss widened to 45.2 million dollars from 9.6 million dollars. An analyst did not expect the company to turn a profit until 2006. Despite the great loss, A has a stock market value of many billions, reflecting investors’ optimism of other future industry. Internet retailing appeal to investors because it provided an efficient means of reaching millions of consumers without having the cost of operating conventional stores with their armies of sales people. Selling online carries its own risks however. With so many companies competing for consumers’ attention price co