【选项】

A.Individually.

B.Electronically.

C.In the abstract.

D.Via a cash register.

【答案】B

【解析】1. At the most cutting-edge retail stores—Victoria Beckham on Dover Street, for instance—you don't go and stand at any kind of cash register when you decide to pay. The staff are equipped with iPads to take your payment while you relax on a sofa.

59.【题干】What makes the author feel uncomfortable nowadays?

【选项】

A.Saving money is becoming a thing of the past.

B.The pleasing Friday-night feeling is fading.

C.Earning money is getting more difficult.

D.Spending money is so fast and easy.

【答案】D

【解析】2. But earning money isn't quick or easy for most of us. Isn't it a bit weird that spending it should happen in half a blink(眨眼)of an eye?

60.【题干】Why does the author choose to write about what's happening to the wallet?

【选项】

A.It represents a change in the modern world.

B.It has something to do with everybody's life.

C.It marks the end of a time-honoured tradition.

D.It is the concern of contemporary economists.

【答案】A

【解析】1.The wallet is heading for extinction. As a day-to-day essential, it will die off with the generation who read print newspapers.

61.【题干】What can we infer from the passage about the author?

【选项】

A.He is resistant to social changes.

B.He is against technological progress.

C.He feels reluctant to part with the traditional wallet.

D.He fells insecure in the ever-changing modern world.

【答案】D

【解析】But I'll leave the economics to the experts. What bothers me about the death of the wallet is the change it represents in our physical environment.

Passage Two

Questions 62 to 66 are based on the following passage.

Everybody sleeps, but what people stay up late to catch—or wake up early in order not to miss—varies by culture.

From data collected, it seems the things that cause us to lose the most sleep, on average, are sporting events, time changes, and holidays.

Around the world, people changed sleep patterns thanks to the start or end of daylight savings time. Russians, for example, began to wake up about a half-hour later each day after President Vladimir Putin shifted the country permanently to \

Russia's other late nights and early mornings generally correspond