（Whether it is) a merchant or a buyer, （you can) click the website navigation button in the upper right corner （to find the products) associated with the current website （more comprehensively).

Why does the professor mention a merchant who ate tulip bulbs?

A．To explain how the Turks introduced the flower to European visitors

B．To explain what happened to tulip bulbs that did not produce desirable colors

C．To give an example of one way that the rich in the Netherlands showed off their wealth

D．To illustrate her point that Europeans were unfamiliar with the flower

听力原文： What happens when a merchant displays an item in his store window with a price tag on it? Must the merchant sell the item if the money is offered? It is a fact of law that a display of goods in a store window is not an offer to sell those goods, which can be accepted by a customer saying he will buy them. Instead, the display is known as an invitation by the merchant to receive offers from potential customers. The customer makes the offer to buy and the merchant may accept that offer. Then the goods are sold. But the merchant need not accept the offer, and without such acceptance, the customer cannot obtain the goods or sue the merchant for not letting him have them.

Unless the seller accepts the offer by taking cash from the customer, the seller is allowed to change his mind. The merchant may want to take back the goods because they have been displayed by mistake or had the wrong price written on them, and he or she would have the legal right to do this.

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A．On the item.

B．In the store.

C．On the window.

D．On the stall.

The( )states that a merchant who offers to buy, sell, or lease goods and gives a written and signed assurance on a separate form. that the offer will be held open cannot revoke the offer for the time stated or, if no time is stated, for a reasonable time.

A.gap-filling rule

B.firm offer rule

C.mirror image rule

D.open term rule

Many years ago, a merchant in London had the misfortune to owe a huge sum to a money-lender who, old and ugly, fancied the merchant's beautiful daughter. He said he would cancel the merchant's debt if he could have the girl instead.

Both the merchant and his daughter were horrified. So the cunning money-lender proposed they let chance decide the matter. He told them he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money-bag and then the girl would have to pick out of the pebbles. If she chose the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be cancelled. If she chose the white one, she would stay with her father and the debt would be cancelled. But if she refuses to pick out a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

Reluctantly the merchant agreed. They were standing on a pebble-strewn path as they talked and the money-lender stooped to pick up the two pebbles. The girl, sharp-eyed with fright, noticed that he picked up two black pebbles and put them into the money-bag.

What would you do if you were the unfortunate girl? If you had to advise her what would you advise her to do?

What type of thinking would you use to solve the problem? You may believe that careful logical analysis must solve the problem if there is a solution. This type of thinking is straight-forward vertical thinking. The other type of thinking is lateral thinking.

Vertical thinkers are not usually of much help to a girl in this situation. The way they analyze it, there are three possibilities:

1. The gift should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there are two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should take a black pebble and sacrifice herself to save her father from prison.

None of these suggestions is very helpful, for if the girl doesn't take a pebble her father goes to prison, and if she does take a pebble, she has to marry the money-lender.

The girl in the story put her hand into the bag and took out a pebble. Without looking she fumbled and let it fall to the path and immediately, it lost among the others. The girl apologized for her clumsiness and suggested that the money-lender look at the remaining pebble in the bag and then they could tell the color of the pebble she has chosen. And the money lender dare not admit his dishonesty. The girl had changed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one.

This story shows the difference between vertical thinking and lateral thinking. Vertical thinkers take very reasonable view of a situation and proceed logically and carefully worked it out. Lateral thinkers tend to explore all the different ways of looking at something, rather than accepting the most promising and proceeding from that.

The author begins this article with ______.

A．an amusing anecdote

B．a well-known fable

C．an illustrative story

D．an enlightening folk-tale

听力原文：F: When we set up the website we wanted to accept online payments from day one. We already had a merchant account for accepting cards in our high street shops, so it made sense to extend that to the website. When a customer pays by card the money ends up in a merchant account,which needs to be linked to our website via certain software. The integration looked complicated,so we hired a specialist to do this.

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A merchant, whose daughter had married a man with whom it proved she could not get on very well, was surprised some weeks later to see the young lady return home with all her belongings.