单选题   SECTION A MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS
    In this section there are four passages followed by nine multiple choicequestions. For each question, there are four suggested answers marked A, B, Cand D. Choose the one that you think is the best answer.
    Passage One
    Comedy's legendary Monty Python members-you know. 'I'm a lumberjack andI'm okay,' the Killer Rabbit, the Dead Parrot-were tired of seeing their legendarysketches pirated and fuzzily posted on You Tube, free to whoever wanted a quicklaugh. So they posted their own, higher-quality versions on YouTube-also free-but letfans know that complete DVD versions were available for purchase. Sales rose 23,000 percent. 'Free worked, and worked brilliantly…People are making lots of moneycharging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we haveessentially created a country-sized economy around the price of $0.00.' Anderson,48, the editor of Wired magazine, discussed the allure of zero with Jesse Kornbluth.
    In the 20th century 'free' meant giving away one thing to create demand foranother. Get a free cell phone, for example, by buying a monthly plan. What is 'free'now?
    Yes, 20th-century 'free' was about real objects made of atoms. Real costs were involved, so the consumer paid one way or another. In the 21th century, 'free' is digital bit with marginal costs. For all practical purposes, they really are free.
    In the digital economy, someone pays, but increasingly it's not you. Google and Wikipedia, for example, don't show up on your credit card. So how do you pay? Not with money, but with your time and attention. Some resources, of course, are scarce and getting scarcer; you pay for those. Digital goods and services, because they can be reproduced and distributed at almost no cost, are abundant.
    Once you've given content away on the Web, can you get people to pay? Absolutely. Use 'free' to get an audience, then segment your user base so you have a free version and a premium one. The Wall Street Journal created a clever hybrid-some free articles, some available only to paid subscribers.
    I get the sense that-when it comes to news, anyway-we'll soon have two classes of Internet users: 1 ) people who have money and will pay for quality reporting and analysis, and 2) people who are less well-off or care less about quality and will accept any information that's free. So the elite will be better informed, and others may get trashier media.
    I'm simply observing what happens in economics when marginal costs fall. In economic terms, 'free' is the law of gravity. I don't tell the apple to fall; it just falls. I don't tell water to flow downhill; it just does. In that way, it's simple: As costs approach zero, 'free' prevails.
    Passage Two
    Diamonds, sparkling under an African sun, have an attraction commensurate with their high price and beauty. For Anglo-American the opportunity to get their hands on some more has proved too much to resist. On November 4th the global mining giant announced that it would acquire the 40% of De Beers, a company that mines two-fifths of the world's diamonds, from the Oppenheimer family for $5.1 billion. This takes Anglo-American's stake in De Beers to 85%; the rest is owned by the government of Botswana, where the firm digs up its gems.
    The price looks right. Demand for diamonds has bounced back after the credit crisis in 2008 and the following recession in the rich world. More and more wealthy Indians and Brazilians seem keen to sport a 'rock' to show just how well they are doing. And the shrewd Oppenheimers do not seem to be getting out of the business because its future looks bleak. There is apparently no family member who wants to take on diamond mining. Nicky Oppenheimer, De Beers's chairman, foresaw the sale in February when he stood down from the board of Anglo-American.
    For Anglo-American it resolves the issue of its non-controlling stake in De Beers. Analysts have long reckoned it should either sell or try to increase its stake. In fact the firm might yet spin off De Beers with an IPO. The terms of the deal allow the Oppenheimers to pocket some more cash from a flotation or sale in the next couple of years, suggesting that such an outcome is not unlikely.
    It would also make sense. Anglo-American is a different beast to the global diversified mining giants that would count as its competitors. It stood apart from the wave of mining mega-mergers over the past decade or so-except as a potential target. The consolidation and the emergence of huge markets for the world's resources have propelled BHP Billiton, for instance, to become one of the world's biggest listed companies.
    Many would claim that Anglo-American has suffered as a result. Once one of the world's biggest miners, it now ranks alongside Xstrata, a company just ten years old, which in 2009 even attempted a nil-premium takeover of Anglo. It also has a significant portion of its assets in South Africa. And unlike its peers it has a large platinum business, as well as all the diamonds.
    Anglo-American's recent strategy has been to diversify out of South Africa, where the threat of nationalization, scarcely credible but a fear for investors none the less, hangs over it. Black-empowerment laws, a scarcity of water and electricity as well as an obstinate workforce make it a difficult place to operate. Botswana is far more accommodating, but it might also make sense to get out of diamonds: it is a business that is more about branding the rocks and less about the savvy capital deployment and logistical know-how that are the hallmarks of the mining business. If that is Anglo' eventual aim, then the deal looks like a smart move.
    Passage Three
    Younger Americans will have to take our word for it: there was a time, way back when Ronald Reagan was president, when your countrymen ordered coffee by simply asking for 'coffee'. Ordering a 'venti skinny chai latte' or a 'grande chocolate cookie crumble frappuccino' would have earned, at best, a blank stare.
    But that was before Howard Schultz took Starbucks from a single coffeehouse in downtown Seattle to a chain with more than 17,000 shops in 55 countries. The chain grew so quickly, and in some areas seemed so ubiquitous, that as early as 1998 a headline in The Onion, a satirical American newspaper, joked, 'New Starbucks Opens in Rest Room of Existing Starbucks'. After suffering through lean years in 2008 and 2009, the company is again going strong. In the 2011 financial year the company served 60m customers per week — more than ever. It also had its highest-ever earnings-per-share ($1.62) and global net revenue ($11.7 billion).
    Yet in 2011 Starbucks decided to do away with something important: it dropped the word 'Coffee' from its logo. While coffee remains as central to Starbucks' business and identity as hamburgers are to McDonald's, the company's recent American acquisitions have moved it beyond java. In November 2011 it acquired Evolution Fresh, a small California-based juice company, for $30m, giving the company a foothold in America's $1.6 billion high-end juice market. And in June 2012 Starbucks bought a bakery, Bay Bread, and its La Boulange-branded cafes, for $100m. Starbuck's customers 'have never been as satisfied with our food as our coffee,' explained Troy Alstead, Starbucks's chief financial officer.
    On November 14th Starbucks made it largest acquisition yet, buying Teavana, an Atlanta based tea retailer, for $620m. This is not the firm's first attempt into the tea market — its stores sell tea, of course, and it bought Tazo, a tea manufacturer and distributor, back in 1999 — but it is by far its boldest. When Starbucks bought Tazo it was simply a brand, but Teavana has some 300 shops, largely mall-based, throughout North America. Mr. Alstead hopes that scale will allow Starbucks 'to do for tea what we did for coffee'.
    This may seem, as they say at Starbucks, a tall order. Americans drink far more coffee than tea. In 2011 the average coffee consumption was 9.39 pounds per person, while tea was a paltry 0.9 pounds. Coffee has long been an essential part of American mornings. Tea has no comparably firm position, except for the tooth-shiveringly sweet iced tea served during meals in the South (85% of all tea consumed in America is iced).
    That said, since 1980 America's coffee consumption has fallen, and is forecast to fall further. Consumption of tea, on the other hand, has grown, and is forecast to keep growing-perhaps benefiting from the idea that it has health benefits that coffee lacks, perhaps driven partly by immigration from tea-drinking countries. The Tea Association of the USA put the value of the tea market in America at $8.2 billion in 2011, up from $1.8 billion just 20 years earlier, and forecasts that it will nearly double in value again by 2014. The sharpest growth will come from tea that is green-which also happens to be the color of money and the logo of Starbucks.
    Passage Four
    Late last year, Airbnb announced that it's going after the major hotel chains-which at first sounded kind of cute, like a precocious Little League pitcher saying he's going to strike out Miguel Cabrera.
    But when CEO Brian Chesky laid out his thinking for me in Airbnb's new, funky headquarters in San Francisco, I thought the investors who have pumped $326 million into the company might not be too dim. Airbnb is becoming much more than a way to spend $26 a night to sleep in London with five other people at The Imperial Fleapit.
    In fact, Airbnb is looking like a proof point of a trend that has been getting a lot of attention lately. Some refer to it as the DIY-for do it yourself-movement. Chesky uses the term 'decentralized production (分散式生产).' Marc Andreessen hit on the concept in a manifesto entitled 'Why Software Is Eating the World?'
    It all points to the same idea: Information technology is eroding the power of large-scale mass production. We're instead moving toward a world of massive numbers of small producers offering unique stuff-and of consumers who reject mass-produced stuff. The Internet, software, 3D printing, social networks, cloud computing and other technologies are making this economically feasible-in fact, desirable.
    The hotel industry-and the way Airbnb thinks about it-is an example of how that is playing out.
    There is a fundamental truth about big hotel chains that is only now being exposed in the Internet age: Hotel chains grew out of a lack of information.
    In the middle of last century, cars and highways made the world far more mobile. Many more people traveled to towns they didn't know, and they needed places to sleep. They had no way to know which hotel or boarding house might be nice or offer amenities they wanted. Travel guides, like Mobil's, popped up in the 1950s, but fdr the most part information remained scarce.
    Chains took advantage of that data deficit. If you knew a Holiday Inn in one town, you knew the Holiday Inn in the next town would be roughly the same. The brand's motto played off this: 'The best surprise is no surprise. ' The uniformity and comfort of a chain trumped the risk of an unknown, independent place.
    As chains got bigger, they could afford to widely advertise-a way to spread more information about the consistency of their hotels. Independents couldn't keep up. They had limited ways to get information to travelers. As long as this big information gap existed, chains grew and independents struggled. The gap drove chains to offer uniform accommodations at scale-and we got today's hospitality industry, dominated by the likes of Hilton, Marriott and Starwood.
    Chesky got to thinking about this when his late grandfather told him Airbnb reminded him of his childhood, when his family would arrive in towns and stay at boarding houses. Chesky thought: If the Internet was around back then, would hotel chains as we know them have been created? 'And the answer is absolutely not,' Chesky says. 'I'm not saying there wouldn't be hotels, but they wouldn't look like they do today.'
单选题     We can infer from the second and third paragraphs that in the 21st century, ______. (Passage One)
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】细节题。根据题干提示定位在第二、三段。这两段作者对比了20世纪和21世纪“免费”概念的不同，在20世纪，“免费”意味着一种赠送，这种赠送是为了创造对另一种产品的需求，消费者实际上是以某种方式为“免费”买单。由第三段最后两句可知，在21世纪，“免费”的产品是数字的，仅涉及边际成本，它们真的是免费的。所以C符合题干要求，为正确答案。 Passage One [参考译文] 戏剧界的传奇蒙提巨莽的成员们——也就是你所熟知的，“我是伐木工，我很好”，杀手兔，死亡鹦鹉——已经厌倦了在YouTube视频网站上看到他们传奇的滑稽剧，这些盗版视频画质模糊，向所有找乐子的人免费开放。因此，他们在YouTube视频网站上公布自己高质量的正版视频。同时，这些视频还是免费的，但这些免费视频让粉丝们知道他们也可以购买完整的DVD版本。于是，销售额增长了230倍。“免费战略起效果了，并且效果是那么的惊人……人们在没有收取任何费用的情况下得到了大量的财富。对于卖家来说，提供免费产品不但不是一无所获，而且收获颇丰：我们已经以零美元的价格建立起一个全国范围的产业。”《连线》杂志的编辑，48岁的安德森，在与杰西·康恩布鲁斯讨论免费的诱惑时如是说。 在20世纪，“免费”意味着一种赠送，这种赠送是为了创造对另一种产品的需求。例如，通过购买每月的套餐业务而免费获得手机。那么如何定义现在的“免费”呢? 没错，20世纪“免费”的产品是由微粒组成的实物。由于实际成本被考虑进来，消费者实际上是以某种方式为“免费”买单。但是，在21世纪，“免费”的产品是数字的，仅涉及边际成本。就各种实用方面而言，它们真的是免费的。 在数字经济中，的确有人在支付，但是你越来越不需要成为那个支付者。比如，谷歌和维基百科不会出现在你的信用卡账单上。那么你如何支付呢?用你的时间和注意力，而不是你的金钱。当然，有些资源是稀缺的，并且变得愈发珍贵；为了购买这些稀缺资源，你必须付钱。但是，数码产品和服务是海量的，因为它们复制和配送的成本几乎为零。 那么，当你在网络中发布信息，你能让人们付费吗?当然可以。你首先通过“免费”吸引读者，然后将用户群细分成两个部分：一个免费用户群和一个优质用户群。《华尔街日报》聪明地创建了一种混合模式：一些文章是免费的，而另一些文章则仅向付费用户开放。 我有这样一种感觉：随着新闻业的发展，无论如何，我们的互联网客户将很快被分为两个群体：1) 有钱并愿意为优质的报道和分析付费的客户；2)经济条件一般或对新闻质量要求较低并接受任何免费信息的客户。因此，精英们将获得很好的信息，而其他人则会收到较低质的媒体信息。 我只是观察了经济学中的边际成本下降的影响。“免费”就是经济领域的重力规律。我并没有叫苹果下落，但苹果便会自然下落。我并没有叫水往低处流，但它永远如此。规律就是如此简单：当成本趋于零，“免费”便一统天下。 Passage Two [参考译文] 在非洲，阳光下闪闪发光的钻石有着与其高价和美丽相称的吸引力。而英美资源集团已经难以抗拒获取更多钻石的机会了。11月4日，这家全球矿业巨头宣布将以51亿美元的价格从奥本海默家族手里收购戴比尔斯公司40%的股份，该公司开采的钻石占全球钻石开采量的五分之二。这令英美资源集团在戴比尔斯公司的持有股份增加至85%；剩余的股份由博茨瓦纳政府持有，戴比尔斯公司正是在该国开采石油。 这个价格看起来很合理。自2008年信贷危机和接踵而至的发达国家经济衰退之后，对钻石的需求量已经回升。富有的印度人和巴西人似乎越来越热衷于炫耀“钻石”来表明他们有多么出色。精明的奥本海默家族似乎并不是因为钻石业前景暗淡而退出该行业的。显然，没有家族成员愿意从事钻石开采业。戴比尔斯公司的董事长尼基·奥本海默从英美资源集团董事会辞职时就预见了二月份的销售量。 对于英美资源集团而言，它解决了戴比尔斯公司非控股权的问题。分析人士长期以来一直认为它应该出售或设法增持其股份。事实上，英美资源集团可能会通过首次公开募股来分拆戴比尔斯公司。交易条款允许奥本海默家族从今后几年的债券发行或出售中将更多的资金收入囊中，这表明这样的结果不是不可能的。 这也有道理。对于那些算是其竞争者的全球多元化矿业巨头们而言，英美资源集团是个与众不同的对手。在过去的大约十年里，英美资源集团一直远离矿业的巨资并购浪潮——除了作为一个潜在的被并购目标。这样的合并以及对全球资源巨大需求市场的出现已经促使必和必拓公司(BHP Billiton)成为全球最大的上市公司之一。 许多人会认为，英美资源集团也因此受到了影响。它曾经是世界上最大的矿业公司之一，而现在的排名却与斯特拉塔不相上下，斯特拉塔仅成立了十年，在2009年甚至尝试无溢价收购英美资源集团。斯特拉塔在南非也有重要份额的产业。与业内其他公司不同，除了钻石以外，它还有大型的铂金业务。 英美资源集团最近的战略是在南非之外实现多元化，在南非，国有化的威胁笼罩着该公司，国有化的言论虽不可信但依然让投资者们担忧。赋予黑人权利的法律、水电的短缺以及难以管束的员工都使得南非成为企业运转的问题地区。波瓦茨那的投资环境则要宽松得多，但是它脱离钻石业可能也是明智的：钻石业更多依靠的是“石头”的品牌化，而不是精明的资本配置和物流技术，这些却都是采矿业的标志。如果这是英美资源集团的最终目标，那么此次交易看上去是个明智之举。 Passage Three [参考译文] 年轻一点的美国人将不得不相信我们所说的话：在罗纳德·里根任职美国总统期间，你的美国同胞们点咖啡时只需要说“咖啡”。如果有人要点“超大杯脱脂印度茶拿铁”或“大杯曲奇碎巧克力星冰乐”，最多只能得到服务员茫然的一个眼神。 不过，这种情况只是在霍华德·舒尔茨接手星巴克之前，他将西雅图市区一个独立的咖啡馆发展成在55个国家拥有17000多家连锁店的企业。星巴克连锁店发展得如此迅速，在某些地方似乎随处可见，以至于早在1998年就有一家美国讽刺报纸《洋葱报》在其头条上开玩笑说，“新星巴克在旧星巴克的洗手间里开张”。熬过不景气的2008年和2009年之后，星巴克公司再次变得强大起来。在2011财政年度，该公司每周接待6000万名顾客——比以往任何一年都要多。公司还获得了最高的每股收益(1.62美元)和全球净收益(117亿美元)。 但是，在2011年星巴克决定废除某样重要的东西：它把“咖啡”一词从商标中去掉了。虽然咖啡仍然是星巴克业务及标识的核心，就如同汉堡之于麦当劳，但是该公司近期在美国进行收购时，已经把“咖啡”抛到了爪哇国。2011年11月，星巴克耗资3千万美元收购了一家位于加利福尼亚州的小型果汁公司Evolution Fresh，这让星巴克在美国16亿美元的高端果汁市场中取得了一席之地。2012年6月，星巴克又斥资1亿美元收购了面包公司Bay Bread及其布朗热品牌的咖啡馆。星巴克的顾客“对我们的食物从未像对我们的咖啡那样满意过，”星巴克的首席财务官特洛伊·阿尔斯特德如是说。 11月14日，星巴克进行了迄今为止最大的一次收购，用6.2亿美元买下了一家位于亚特兰大的茶叶零售商Teavana。这并不是星巴克首次涉足茶叶市场——当然，星巴克店里就卖茶，并且早在1999年，星巴克就收购了一家茶叶生产商和经销商Tazo——但这却是星巴克最大胆的一次收购。当星巴克收购Tazo的时候，Tazo只是一个品牌，而Teavana在整个北美拥有300多家店铺，大多数位于商场里。阿尔斯特德女士希望这一规模的收购能让星巴克“像经营咖啡一样去经营茶叶”。 就像人们在星巴克所说的，这可能看起来困难重重。美国人喝咖啡比喝茶叶要多得多。在2011年，咖啡的人均消耗量为9.39磅，而茶的消耗量却只有微不足道的0.9磅。长期以来，咖啡一直是美国人早上必不可少的一部分。除了在南方就餐时提供的能让牙齿打战的甜冰茶以外(美国人所喝的茶有85%是冰茶)，茶没有能与咖啡相提并论的牢固地位。 尽管如此，1980年以来，美国咖啡消耗量有所下降，并且预计会进一步下降。另一方面，茶的消耗量却在增长，并预计会持续增长——这也许是受益于茶比咖啡更有利于健康的观点，也可能是因为来自饮茶国家移民增多的缘故。美国茶叶协会确定2011年美国茶叶市场的价值为82亿美元(在20年前仅为18亿美元)，并预测这一价值到2014年几乎会再翻番。增长最快的将是绿茶——绿色刚好是美元和星巴克商标的颜色。 Passage Four [参考译文] 去年年底，Aribnb宣布，开始追赶大型连锁酒店的脚步——乍一听感觉很有意思，这就好像一位早熟的少年棒球联合会宣称要将米格尔·卡布瑞拉三振出局一样。 但是，在旧金山新潮的Aribnb总部，当其首席执行官布莱恩·切斯基对我说出他的想法时，我认为，为该公司投资3.26亿美元的投资者并非是犯迷糊。Aribnb现在的定位远不止是让一个人与其他5个人在跳蚤帝国旅馆以每晚26美金的价格住在伦敦。事实上，Aribnb看起来像是在为最近备受关注的一种趋势提供佐证。一些人称之为“DIY(自己动手)运动”。用切斯基的话说是“分散式生产”，而马克·安德森则在《为何软件正在吞噬世界》宣言里提出了该概念。 这都指向了相同的观点：信息技术正在侵蚀规模化批量生产的势力。我们正在迎来这样的一个世界：大量的小型制造商提供独特的产品，消费者拒绝批量生产的产品。互联网、软件、3D打印、社交网络、云计算和其他技术使得这一趋势在经济上可行——事实上，这更合人心意。 酒店行业以及Aribnb对酒店行业的预期，正是这一趋势的例证。 关于大型连锁酒店的一个基本事实是，它们近期才被卷入到网络时代中：大型连锁酒店成长于信息匮乏的时代。 上世纪中期，汽车与公路让世界变得更便捷。更多的人旅行到他们过去不知道的城镇，而且他们需要找地方睡觉。他们没有途径知道哪家旅馆或寄宿房屋更舒适，哪家可以提供他们想要的设施。旅行指南(比如《美孚旅行指南》)出现于20世纪50年代，但是在多数境况下，信息依然匮乏。 连锁店利用了信息匮乏的状况。如果你对某个城镇的假日酒店有所了解，你就知道毗邻城镇的假日酒店也大致一样。这一连锁品牌的理念是：“最好的惊喜是一如既往。”与冒险入住一家未知的独立酒店相比，连锁酒店品质的稳定性和舒适性有着绝对的优势。 随着连锁酒店的壮大，酒店可以支付大范围的广告——这一方式可以传递更多关于酒店品质稳定性的信息。独立酒店难以望其项背。他们将信息传递给旅行者的途径非常有限。只要存在信息传递的鸿沟，连锁酒店就会成长，独立酒店就会苦苦挣扎。这一鸿沟使得连锁酒店规模化地提供统一的设施，因此我们拥有了当今的酒店业，包括占主导地位的希尔顿、万豪和喜达屋。 切斯基的先祖父告诉他，Aribnb让他想起了自己的孩童时代，那时，他的家人会到城镇里去并入住可供留宿的地方，这件事让切斯基有了现在的想法。他想：如果那时就有网络，我们所熟知的连锁酒店会出现吗?切斯基说：“答案绝对是否定的，我不是说不会出现酒店，而是说酒店不会是现在这样的。”
单选题     It can be inferred from the sentence 'I don't tell the apple to fall; it just falls' in the last paragraph that ______. (Passage One)
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】推理题。根据题干提示定位在最后一段。由该段第二、三句以及第四句可知，作者认为，“免费”就是经济领域的重力规律，就像苹果成熟会自然下落，水会往低处流一样，故A“免费已成为一种趋势”符合题干要求，为正确答案。B“苹果成熟后会自然落下”和C“苹果下落是一种自然规律”，两个选项只停留在句子的表层含义，故排除；D“所有人都有免费的午餐”与原文意思不符，故排除。
单选题     According to the passage, which of the following statements is CORRECT? ______ (Passage One)
 
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】细节题。此题考查对全文信息的把握。由第六段第一句可知，互联网客户将很快被分为两个群体，其中一部分就是有钱并愿意为优质的报道和分析付费的客户，D“如果想得到优质的报道和分析你将要付费”符合题干要求，故为正确答案。由第一段第二句可知，传奇蒙提巨蟒的成员们在YouTube网站上公布正版视频，但其目的是推进完整版DVD的销售量，故排除A；第二、三段指出“免费”的概念发生了变化，故排除B；由第四段第五句可知，为了购买某些稀缺资源，你必须付费，故排除C“数字信息时代所有信息都是免费的”。
单选题     According to Paragraph 1, we can know that Anglo-American ______. (Passage Two)
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。根据第一段第三句可知，11月4日，这家全球矿业巨头宣布将以51亿美元的价格从奥本海默家族手里收购戴比尔斯公司40%的股份，该公司开采的钻石占全球钻石开采量的五分之二，A陈述正确，故为正确答案，同时排除B和C。根据本段最后一句可知，这令英美资源集团在戴比尔斯公司的持有股份增加至85%；剩余的股份由博茨瓦纳政府持有，戴比尔斯公司正是在该国开采钻石，D陈述错误，故排除。
单选题     According to the passage, which of the following statements about global mining business is INCORRECT? ______ (Passage Two)
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】细节题。根据第四段第三句可知，在过去的大约十年里，英美资源集团一直远离矿业的巨资并购浪潮，A“英美资源集团已经成为一个大规模的矿业合并企业”陈述错误，故为正确答案。根据第四段第四句可知，这样的合并以及全球资源巨大需求市场的出现已经促使必和必拓公司(BHP Billiton)成为全球最大的上市公司之一，B“必和必拓公司已经成为全球最大的上市公司之一”表述正确，故排除；根据第五段第二至四句可知，它曾经是世界上最大的矿业公司之一，而现在的排名却与斯特拉塔不相上下，斯特拉塔仅成立了十年，在2009年甚至尝试无溢价收购英美资源集团。斯特拉塔在南非也有重要份额的产业。与业内其他公司不同，除了钻石以外，它还有大型的铂金业务。由此可知，C“英美资源集团曾经几乎被一个成立十年的公司收购”和D“斯特拉塔公司在南非有铂金和钻石业务”表述正确，故均排除。
单选题     According to Troy Alstead, the aim of Starbucks' acquisition of Bay Bread is to ______. (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】推理题。文章第三段最后一句提到，星巴克的首席财务官特洛伊·阿尔斯特德解释说，公司收购Bay Bread的原因是星巴克的顾客对其食物从未像对其咖啡那样满意过，由此推知，星巴克的此次收购是为了提高顾客对食物的满意度，所以选C。A“占领面包市场”B“扩张公司”和D“使商品多样化”在文章中均未提及，故排除。
单选题     Which of the following statements about the consumption of tea in America is INCORRECT? ______ (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】细节题。由第六段第一、二句可知，1980年以来，美国咖啡消耗量有所下降，而茶的消耗量却在增长，但该句并未表明茶的消耗量高于咖啡的消耗量，且在第五段第三句提到，2011年咖啡的人均消耗量远远高于茶的人均消耗量，所以B和文中的意思不符，故为正确答案。第五段最后一句提到，美国人所喝的茶有85%是冰茶，所以A“美国人倾向于喝冰茶而不是热茶”表述正确，故排除；第六段第二句表明，茶的消耗量在增长，还有可能是因为来自饮茶国家的移民增多的缘故，因此C“持续增长的茶消耗量可能是移民造成的”是正确的表述，故排除；D“最大的消耗增长源自绿茶”在第六段的最后一句中提及，故排除。
单选题     What is the relationship between the example of Airbnb and that of Little League pitcher? ______ (Passage Four)
 
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】推理题。第一段提到，Airbnb宣布开始追赶大型连锁酒店的脚步——乍一听感觉很有意思，这就像一位早熟的少年棒球联合会投手宣称要将米格尔·卡不瑞拉三振出局一样，由此可知，这两个例子之间的关系是“类比”，故选A。B“比较”、C“补充”和D“矛盾”均可排除。
单选题     According to the passage, Chesky believes that ______. (Passage Four)
 
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】推理题。最后一段后面讲到，切斯基认为，如果那时就有网络，我们所熟悉的连锁酒店就不会出现，酒店行业的面貌也不会是如今这样的，故选C。
单选题     SECTION B SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS
    In this section there are six short-answer questions based on the passages in SECTION A. Answer the questions with No MORE THAN TEN WORDS in the space provided on ANSWER SHEET TWO.
    According to the author, who will pay for you in the digital economy? (Passage One)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】根据题干关键词pay for定位到第四段。根据该段可知，在数字经济中，的确有人为你支付，但是你越来越不需要成为那个支付者，而是用你的时间和注意力来支付，不是金钱。所以“Nobody”为正确答案。
单选题     What does the word 'that' in the last paragraph indicate? (Passage Two)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】根据文章最后一段最后两句可知，博茨瓦纳的投资环境则要宽松得多，但是它脱离钻石业可能也是明智的：钻石业更多依靠的是“石头”的品牌化，而不是精明的资本配置和物流技术，这些却都是采矿业的标志。如果that指的是英美资源集团的最终目标，那么此次交易看上去是个明智之举，文中冒号后面的内容是在解释说明为什么退出钻石业是明智的，而英美资源集团购人在博茨瓦纳的钻石公司，如果说是明智的话，应与上文解释相反，可见，其中的that指代的是：Branding the rocks.
单选题     What does the news about Starbucks in The Onion imply? (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】文章第二段第二句提到，《洋葱报》在其头条上开玩笑说，“新星巴克在旧星巴克的洗手间里开张”，该句的前半句表明刊登这一新闻的原因是星巴克连锁店发展得非常迅速，在某些地方似乎随处可见，所以该新闻暗指星巴克在同一个地方开了太多家的分店，因此：There are too many Starbucks in one place.为正确答案。
单选题     What is the earliest company that Starbucks purchased? (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】第三段第三句提到，星巴克在2011年11月收购了Evolution Fresh，该段的第四句表明星巴克在2012年6月收购了Bay Bread，第四段第一句提到，Teavana是在2012年11月14日被收购的，而Tazo是在1999年被收购的，所以Tazo在四家公司中是最早被星巴克收购的，故正确答案为“Tazo.”。
单选题     According to the passage, what does the example of Airbnb show? (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】根据第五段可知，酒店行业以及Airbnb对酒店行业的预期，正是这一趋势的例证，由此可知，本段承上启下，答案需要从第四段中得知，第四段第一句为中心句，也是下文讨论的重点，故答案为：Information technology is eroding the power of large-scale mass production.
单选题     Which paragraphs briefly give the reason why hotel chains developed? (Passage Three)
 
【正确答案】
【答案解析】根据第八段第一、四句可知，连锁酒店利用了信息匮乏的状况，与冒险入住一家未知的独立酒店相比，连锁酒店品质的稳定性和舒适性有着绝对的优势，另外本段还列举了假日酒店的例子来证明连锁酒店品质的稳定性。根据第九段第四句可知，只要信息传递的鸿沟存在，连锁酒店就会成长，独立酒店就会苦苦挣扎，因此这两段讲述的是连锁酒店发展的原因，故“Paragraphs 8 and 9. ”为正确答案。