四、閱讀測驗【請在下列各題中選出最適當的答案】
      Retailers have spent millions of dollars researching and refining the layouts of
their stores, all with the goal of getting the most profitable items in your shopping cart.
For instance, you can bet that the products placed at eye level on the shelves are
those that give the highest profit margin to the store； by contrast, if you have to bend
down or ask for assistance to reach a product, it’s probably not as profitable.
      Another strategy revolves around the fact that most of us are right-handed (over
88 percent), and thus will reach for things with our right hands. So you’ll see eye-
catching displays to the right of the store entrance, offering high-margin products, or
items they want to get rid of quickly.      If you want to avoid falling into either of these traps, go against the flow. Veer left,and look to the top and bottom of the shelves. You’ll find better deals there.
      Another trick retailers tend to play is to end every item with a 9. They do it for a
very good reason.
      The difference between $199.99 and $200 is not just one cent. It’s a psychological
trick that somehow makes the first price way more attractive than the second.
Psychologists believe that as consumers, we pay much more attention to the dollars
than the cents.
      And specifically, the first digit in the price also matters. We look at the 1 and think
“oh good, we’re still under $200.” Well, yes: By a penny. But the second it jumps into
the $200 category, it’s between $200 and $300.
      That’s a significant jump in our heads, even though on paper it’s only a jump of
one cent.
      Strangely, it works even when the price is raised to end in a nine. This test
revealed that when a store raised the price of a dress from $34 to $39, sales of the
item went up by one-third! So look carefully at the prices, and mentally note your
$199.99 purchases as over $200. They will be after tax, anyway (except in a few
states).
【題組】46. What is the main idea of this passage?
(A) Retailers tend to spend a lot of money doing research on the layout of the stores.
(B) Retailers use a lot of measures based on physical and psychological studies to increase their profit.
(C) Shoppers must be careful when they decide to buy anything with a pricetag which ends with a 9.
(D) Retailers know that consumers will pay much more attention to the dollars than the cents.