2018年雅思阅读模拟题及答案解析(21)

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　　How to increase sales
　　
　　From The Economist print edition
　　
　　How shops can exploit people's herd mentality to increase sales
　　
　　1.A TRIP to the supermarket may not seem like an exercise in psychological
　　
　　warfare—but it is.Shopkeepers know that filling a store with the aroma of
　　
　　freshly baked bread makes people feel hungry and persuades them to buy more food
　　
　　than they had intended.Stocking the most expensive products at eye level makes
　　
　　them sell faster than cheaper but less visible competitors.Now researchers are
　　
　　investigating how “swarm intelligence” (that is，how ants，bees or any social
　　
　　animal，including humans，behave in a crowd) can be used to influence what people
　　
　　buy.
　　
　　2.At a recent conference on the simulation of adaptive behaviour in
　　
　　Rome，Zeeshan-ul-hassan Usmani，a computer scientist from the Florida Institute of
　　
　　Technology，described a new way to increase impulse buying using this
　　
　　phenomenon.Supermarkets already encourage shoppers to buy things they did not
　　
　　realise they wanted: for instance，by placing everyday items such as milk and
　　
　　eggs at the back of the store，forcing shoppers to walk past other tempting goods
　　
　　to reach them.Mr Usmani and Ronaldo Menezes，also of the Florida Institute of
　　
　　Technology，set out to enhance this tendency to buy more by playing on the herd
　　
　　instinct.The idea is that，if a certain product is seen to be popular，shoppers
　　
　　are likely to choose it too.The challenge is to keep customers informed about
　　
　　what others are buying.
　　
　　3.Enter smart-cart technology.In Mr Usmani's supermarket every product has
　　
　　a radio frequency identification tag，a sort of barcode that uses radio waves to
　　
　　transmit information，and every trolley has a scanner that reads this information
　　
　　and relays it to a central computer.As a customer walks past a shelf of goods，a
　　
　　screen on the shelf tells him how many people currently in the shop have chosen
　　
　　that particular product.If the number is high，he is more likely to select it
　　
　　too.
　　
　　4.Mr Usmani's “swarm-moves” model appeals to supermarkets because it
　　
　　increases sales without the need to give people discounts.And it gives shoppers
　　
　　the satisfaction of knowing that they bought the “right” product—that is，the one
　　
　　everyone else bought.The model has not yet been tested widely in the real
　　
　　world，mainly because radio frequency identification technology is new and has
　　
　　only been installed experimentally in some supermarkets.But Mr Usmani says that
　　
　　both Wal-Mart in America and Tesco in Britain are interested in his work，and
　　
　　testing will get under way in the spring.
　　
　　5.Another recent study on the power of social influence indicates that
　　
　　sales could，indeed，be boosted in this way.Matthew Salganik of Columbia
　　
　　University in New York and his colleagues have described creating an artificial
　　
　　music market in which some 14,000 people downloaded previously unknown songs.The
　　
　　researchers found that when people could see the songs ranked by how many times
　　
　　they had been downloaded，they followed the crowd.When the songs were not ordered
　　
　　by rank，but the number of times they had been downloaded was displayed，the
　　
　　effect of social influence was still there but was less pronounced.People thus
　　
　　follow the herd when it is easy for them to do so.
　　
　　6.In Japan a chain of convenience shops called RanKing RanQueen has been
　　
　　ordering its products according to sales data from department stores and
　　
　　research companies.The shops sell only the most popular items in each product
　　
　　category，and the rankings are updated weekly.Icosystem，a company in
　　
　　Cambridge，Massachusetts，also aims to exploit knowledge of social networking to
　　
　　improve sales.
　　
　　7.And the psychology that works in physical stores is just as potent on the
　　
　　internet.Online retailers such as Amazon are adept at telling shoppers which
　　
　　products are popular with like-minded consumers.Even in the privacy of your
　　
　　home，you can still be part of the swarm.
　　
　　Questions 1-6
　　
　　Complete the sentences below with words taken from the reading passage. Use
　　
　　NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS for each answer.
　　
　　1.Shopowners realize that the smell of _______________ can increase sales
　　
　　of food products.
　　
　　2.In shops, products shelved at a more visible level sell better even if
　　
　　they are more _______________.
　　
　　3.According to Mr. Usmani, with the use of “swarm intelligence” phenomenon,
　　
　　a new method can be applied to encourage _______________.
　　
　　4.On the way to everyday items at the back of the store, shoppers might be
　　
　　tempted to buy _______________.
　　
　　5.If the number of buyers shown on the _______________ is high, other
　　
　　customers tend to follow them.
　　
　　6.Using the “swarm-moves” model, shopowners do not have to give customers
　　
　　_______________ to increase sales.