二、阅读理解(11-30)

Packaging is a very important form of advertising. A package can sometimes motivate people to buy products. For example, a little child might ask for a breakfast food contained in a box with a picture of a TV character. The child is more interested in the picture than in breakfast food. Pictures for children to color or cut out, games printed on a package, or a small gift inside a box also motivate many children to buy products - or to ask their parents to buy for them.

Some packages suggest that a buyer will get something for nothing. Food products sold in reusable containers are examples of this. Although a similar product in plain container might cost less, people often prefer to buy the product in a reusable glass or dish, because they believe the container is free. However, the cost of the container is added to the cost of the product.

The size of a package also motivates a buyer. Maybe the package has "Economy Size" or "Family Size" printed on it. This suggests that the larger size has the most product for the least money. But that is not always true. To find it out, a buyer has to know how the product is sold and the price of the basic unit.

The information on the package should provide some answers. But the important thing for any buyer to remember is that a package is often an advertisement. The words and pictures do not tell the whole story. Only the product inside can do that.

11. "A buyer will get something for nothing" in paragraph 2 may probably mean _____.

A.a buyer will not get what he pays for

B.a buyer will get more than what he pays for

C.a buyer will get something useful free of charge

D.a buyer will get more but pay less

【答案精解】A. 推理题。这句话的意思是“有的购买者买一件东西，却什么也不图。”隐藏的意思是他们只看包装不看实物，是物非所值的购物方式。只有选项A是表达的这种意思，其他几个选项意思近似。

12. From the pasage we know the buyer pays more attention to _____.

A.the size of a container

B.a container with attractive picture

C.a well-designed container

D.a plain container with low cost

【答案精解】C. 推理题。整篇文章讲的是包装就是广告。包装诱惑人进行购买，为什么人们会购买呢，主要是因为人们对好的包装感兴趣，通常认为他们是免费的。

13. What suggestion does the writer give in the passage?

A.It's not good to buy the product which is sold in a glass or dish.

B.The quality of a container has nothing to do with the quality of the product.

C.The best choice for a buyer is to buy a product in a plain package.

D.A buyer should buy what he needs most rather than a well-designed package.

【答案精解】D. 推理题。后一段，作者提示读者The words and pictures do not tell the whole story. Only the product inside Call do that.也就是说不要太相信广告词和图，要看产品本身。

14. Which of the following sentences is NOT true according to the passage?

A.In fact glasses or dishes used for packaging do not cost money at all.

B.“Family Size”printed on the package means that it is rather economic.

C.To a child, even to an adult, the form is far more important than the content.

D.Words and pictures written on the package are thought to be an advertisement.

【答案精解】A. 判断题。第二段后一句However，the cost of the container is added to the cost of the product，说明所有包装的成本都是算入产品价格的，选项A说包装的玻璃碟子不花钱，这是不正确的。

15. What do you think is the best title for the passage?

A.How to Package a Product.

B.How to Make an Advertisement.

C.How to Sell Product.

D.How to Attract More Buyers.

【答案精解】A. 主旨题。本文是讲包装让购物者产生购物冲动的问题，它包含了两层意思，一是对于消费者来说，要注意不要只看包装不看内容;二是对于卖家来说，就是要注意如何包装产品了。因此A更符合这篇文章的标题。

The first pre-election poll, or "straw vote", as it was then called, was conducted by the Harrisburg Pennsylvanian before the 1824 presidential election. This straw vote and the many that followed it really registered nothing but local opinion. However, as communications improved and elections were won by closer and closer margins, newspapers and journals tried desperately to satisfy their readers’ curiosity in more reliable ways.

Before the 1928 elections, no fewer than eighty-five publications made private inquiries, generally by means of questionaires(问卷、调查表)sent to subscribers(订户)and by telephone surveys. The principle common to all these inquiries was that they depended on quantity rather than quality; little effort was made to reach representatives of all segments(部分)of the population. Still, the erroneous belief persisted that the greater the number of questionaires, the more accurate the results would be. The record was held by the American monthly Literary Digest, which sent out millions of postcards with short and pointed questions before each election, and received many hundreds of thousands of replies. In fact, in 1932, the Literary Digest’s forecast was off by only 1 percent.

In view of such striking achievements, it seemed rather impertinent(粗鲁的)for the young American journalist, George Gallup,to claim that large numbers were irrelevant, and that equally accurate or better predictions could be made with a small but carefully selected sample of the population and a small team of skilled interviewers.

In 1936, it took Gallup a long time to convince thirty-five newspaper editors that his system was much cheaper than the customary mass inquiries and that it could provide surprisingly accurate predictions. The editors finally agreed, on condition that if Gallup's predictions were less accurate than those obtained by the tried method of the Literary Digest, he would have to refund(赔偿)the entire cost of the investigation. Although the Literary Digest broke its own record by obtaining two million replies to its electoral postcards that year, its prediction was wrong by 19 percent, whereas Gallup's was off by less than 1 percent.

16.From the passage we know that the earlies pre-election polls were _____ in reflecting the public opinions.

A. meaningful

B. inaccurate

C. satisfying

D. successful

答案B.文章段告诉我们，初的选举前的民意测验反映的仅仅是地方性的、局部的意见，由此可见它们在反映民意方面是不够准确的。

17.All of the following are the characteristics of the inquiries are mentioned in the second paragraph except _____.

A. a large number of questionaires were sent out

B. quantity rather than quality was emphasized

C. almost no effort was made to interview people from every walk of life

D. every publication in America got involved

答案D.从文章第二段可知，这些调查共同的特点是重量不重质，错误地认为发出去的问卷越多结果就越准确，而且调查的对象缺乏广泛性。由此可见，A，B，C三项都是这些民意调查的特点，而D项既不符合事实，也谈不上是什么特点。

18.We can infer from the passage that in the beginning the newspaper editors were _____ Gallup's system.

A. doubtful of

B. enthusiastic about

C. displeased with

D. indignant at

答案A.由文章第四段可知，盖洛普花了很长时间才说服35位报纸编辑采用他的调查方法。由此可断定，对他的方法编辑们起初是持怀疑态度的。B项不符合事实，C项和D项在文中也找不到依据。

19.We can infer from the passage that in the early 1930s _____.

A. Gallup was a famous journalist

B. the Literary Digest like to break records

C. the Literary Digest was the biggest monthly in America

D. the method of the Literary Digest was popular and well-received

答案D.盖洛普当时只是个年轻的记者，费了很大的劲才说服别人采用他的调查方法，所以A项是不正确的。文中虽然两次提到《文摘》月刊保持和打破纪录，但不能由此推断它喜欢破纪录，所以B项也不是正确答案。C项在文中找不到依据，所以也不对。只有D项是正确的推论，因为文章第二段的后一句话告诉我们，《文摘》对1932年选举的预测误差仅为百分之一，而且第四段又说编辑们给盖洛普提的条件是如果他的预测不如《文摘》准确，他就得掏钱负担整个调查的费用，可见《文摘》采用的方法是为大多数人所接受的。

20.Gallup's system proved to be _____.

A. much cheaper

B. a great failure

C. a huge success

D. much costly

答案C.看懂文章的后一句即可确定正确答案是C. whereas Gallup's was off by less than 1 percent意为“而盖洛普的预测误差不到百分之一”。

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