BlackFridayistheFridayfollowingThanksgivingDayintheUnit...

問題詳情：

Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States. It has been regarded as the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Although it's not an official holiday, millions of employers give their employees the day off, and many people use that day to get a jump­start on their holiday shopping. A similar day in Canada and the Great Britain is called “Boxing Day”．

Black Friday has become somewhat of a marketing sensation in recent years. Since 2005, it has been the busiest shopping day of the year. To lure shoppers, retailers (零售商) routinely open their doors as early as 4 am and offer special sales and promotions to the shoppers that arrive early. Some of the special deals offered by stores are only available in limited quantities. That is why some shoppers intent on getting the best deals often camp out in front of stores overnight so that they'll be the first in line when the doors open.

But why Black Friday? Historians believe the name started in Philadelphia in the mid­1960s. Bus drivers and police used “Black Friday” to describe the heavy traffic that would block city streets the day after Thanksgiving as shoppers headed to the stores.

Businesses, however, didn't like the negative tone associated with the “Black Friday” name. In the early 1980s, a more positive explanation of the name began to circulate. According to this alternative explanation, Black Friday is the day when retailers finally begin to turn a profit for the year. In accounting terms (會計説法), operating at a loss is called being “in the red” because accountants traditionally used red ink to show negative amounts. Positive amounts were usually shown in black ink. Thus，being “in the black” is a good thing because it means stores are operating at a profit.

Recently, for those who are too busy to shop on Black Friday or who just don't want to fight the crowds, the Monday following Black Friday has become known as Cyber Monday (網絡星期一) for the many online deals.

篇章導讀：本文是一篇説明文。文章介紹了“黑*星期五”相關的信息和名字的由來，讓我們瞭解了西方文化的特定歷史知識和文化習俗等。

9．On Black Friday, the Americans  ________.

A．don't have to go to work as usual

B．look exactly like the Canadians

C．are usually busy doing shopping

D．stay at home and relax themselves

10．The underlined word “lure” (in Paragraph 2) probably means  “________”．

A．protect                             B．attract

C．persuade                            D．remind

11．How do the retailers understand Black Friday?

A．It is totally different from Boxing Day.

B．They usually lose some money on that day.

C．It never keeps them very busy.

D．It probably brings them more money.

12．The author writes this passage in order to  ________.

A．state the development of Cyber Monday

B．tell the difference between red and black

C．introduce Black Friday to the readers

D．explain the meaning of Boxing Day

【回答】

9.C　細節理解題。根據文章第一段第三句可知，雖然“黑*星期五”不是官方節日，但許多老闆會給員工放假，人們通常在這一天忙着購物。

10.B　詞義猜測題。根據畫線詞所在句子“retailers (零售商) routinely open their doors as early as 4 am and offer special sales and promotions to the shoppers that arrive early(零售商早上4點就開門，給早到的顧客一些特價打折和促銷)”，故可推知，lure是“吸引”的意思。

11.D　細節理解題。根據文章第四段第三句可知，零售商認為“黑*星期五”可以帶給他們更多的利潤。

12.C　推理判斷題。根據文章對這個特殊“節日”的介紹和關鍵信息第一段第一句“Black Friday is the Friday following Thanksgiving Day in the United States.”可知，文章主要向讀者介紹“黑*星期五”的相關信息。

知識點：*經濟文化類閲讀

題型：閲讀理解