Section B
Directions: In this section, you are going to read a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement contains information given in one of the paragraphs. Identify the paragraph from which the information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Each paragraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
The Best Retailers Combine Bricks and Clicks
A) Retail profits are falling sharply. Stores are closing. Malls are emptying. The depressing stories just keep coming. Reading the earnings announcements of large retail stores like Macy's, Nordstrom, and Target is about as uplifting as a tour of an intensive care unit . The internet is apparently taking down yet another industry .Brick and mortar stores (实体店) seem to be going the way of the yellow pages. Sure enough,the Census Bureau just released data showing that online retail sales surged 15.2 percent between the first quarter of 2015 and the first quarter of 2016.
B) But before you dump all of your retail stocks, there are more facts you should consider. Looking only at that 15.2 percent “surge” would be misleading .It was an increase that was on a small base of 6.9 percent. Even when a tiny number grows by a large percentage terms,it is often still tiny.
C) More than 20 years after the internet was opened to commerce, the Census Bureau tells that brick and mortar sales accounted for 92.3 percent of retail sales in the first quarter of 2016. Their data show that only 0.8 percent of retail sales shifted from offline to online between the beginning of 2015 and 2016.
D) So, despite all the talk about drone(无人机) deliveries to your doorstep ,all the retail