单选题 Every year thousands of people are arrested and taken to court for shop-lifting. In Britain alone, about HK $3,000,000 worth of goods are stolen from shops every week. As a result of this "shrinkage" as the shops call it, the honest public has to pay higher prices.
Shop-lifters can be divided into three main categories: the professionals, the deliberate amateur, and the people who just can"t help themselves. The professionals do not pose much of a problem for the store detectives, who, assisted by closed circuit television, can usually cope with them. The professionals tend to go for high value goods in parts of the shops where security measures are tightest. And, in any case, they account for only a small percentage of the total losses due to shop-lifting.
The same applies to the deliberate amateur who is, so to speak, a professional in training. Most of them get caught sooner or later, and they are dealt with severely by the courts.
The real problem is the person who gives way to a sudden temptation and is in all other respects an honest and law-abiding citizen. Contrary to what one would expect, this kind of shop-lifter is rarely poor. He does not steal because he needs the goods and cannot afford to pay for them. He steals because he simply cannot stop himself. And there are countless others who, because of age, sickness or plain absent-mindedness, simply forget to pay for what they take from the shops.
In order to prevent the quite incredible growth in ship-lifting offences, some stores, in fact, are doing their best to separate the thieves from the confused by prohibiting customers from taking bags into the store. However, what is most worrying about the whole problem is, perhaps, that it is yet another instance of the innocent majority being penalized and inconvenienced because of the actions of a small minority. It is the aircraft hijack situation in another form. Because of the possibility of one passenger in a million boarding an aircraft with a weapon, the other 999,999 passengers must subject themselves to searches and delays. Unless the situation in the shops improves, in ten years" time we may all have to subject ourselves to a body-search every time we go into a store to buy a tin of beans!
单选题 Why does the honest public have to pay higher prices when they go to the shops?
【正确答案】 D
【答案解析】[解析] 细节推理题。根据题干关键词the honest public have to pay higher prices定位到原文首段尾句。首段中以英国商家每年因为丢东西会损失很多钱为例说明了首段首句的观点。原文首段首句中的shop-lifting(店内盗窃)与选项D重现。故答案为D。
单选题 The third group of people steal things because they ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节推理题。根据题干关键词The third group of people steal things定位到原文第四段。第四段首句中的gives way to和a sudden temptation分别与选项D中的can not resist和temptation(诱惑)对应。故答案为C。
单选题 According to the passage, law-abiding citizens ______.
【正确答案】 B
【答案解析】[解析] 细节推理题。根据题干关键词law-abiding citizens定位到原文第四段首句。首句提到尽管是很law-abiding citizens(遵纪守法的公民),也有可能顺手牵羊。故答案为B。
单选题 Which of the following statements is NOT true about the main types of shop-lifting?
【正确答案】 A
【答案解析】[解析] 细节判断题。根据原文第二段尾句提到the professionals(专业盗窃)只占总的失窃率的only a small percentage。选项A与此矛盾。故答案为A。
单选题 The aircraft hijack situation is used in order to show that ______.
【正确答案】 C
【答案解析】[解析] 细节推理题。根据题干关键词aircraft hijack situation定位到原文尾段第三句。劫机是一个例子,它所支持的观点是it is yet another instance of...即无辜的大众因为小部分人的错误而受到牵连,将此观点放大到整篇文章来看,就是“诚实的顾客要因为一些人的偷窃行为而花更多的钱购物”。故答案为C。