Auctions(拍卖) are public sales of goods conducted by an officially approved aucti

Auctions(拍卖) are public sales of goodsconducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd gathered inthe auction-room to make offers or “bids”, for the various items on sale. Heencourages buyers,and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods.

 Almost all goods of various qualities are sold by auction. Among theseare coffee, skins, wool, tea, fruit, vegetables and wines. Auction sales arealso useful for land and property, antique(古董), furniture, pictures, rare books, old china(瓷器), and works of art.

 An auction is usually advertised beforehand with a full description ofthe articles to be sold and where and when they can be viewed by possiblebuyers. If the advertisement cannot give full details，catalogues(目标)are printed, and each group ofgoods to be sold together, called a “lot”, is usually given a number. Theauctioneer need not begin with lot1,and continue with lot2,lot3,and so on; hemay wait until he sees certain dealers in the room and then produce the lotsthey are likely to be interested in .The auctioneer therefore has a directinterest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible.

 The auctioneer must know quite accurately the current market values ofthe goods he is selling, and he should be acquainted (熟悉) with regular buyers of suchgoods. He will not waste time by starting the bidding too low. He will also encouragethe rivals among buyers to bid against each other in order to get a high price.It is largely in his advice that a seller will fix a “reserved” price, that is,a price below which the goods cannot be sold .Even the best auctioneer,however, finds itお difficult tostop a “knock-out”（连锁拍货, because dealers illegally arranged beforehand not to bid againsteach other, but choose one of them as the only bidder, in the hope of buyinggoods at very low prices. It such a “knock-out” succeeds, the real auction saletakes place privately afterwards among the dealers.

1.At what prices are auctioned goodsusually sold?

A. The reserved prices fixed bysellers.

B. The prices officially approved.

C. The highest price offered bybidders.

D. The prices the dealersarranged beforehand.

2．Which of the following statements about an auctioneer is NOT trueaccording to the passage?

A. He encourages buyers to bidhigher prices.

B. He gives advice to sellers.

C. He should know the currentvalues of the goods on sale.

D. He is a government official.

3．“A reserved price” in the last paragraph means   .

A. a price which an article canbe sold at

B. a price below which an articlecannot be sold

C. a price fixed by the localgovernment

D. a price acceptable to possiblebuyers

4．Even the best auctioneer finds it hard to stop a “knock-out” because   .

A. dealers sometimes arranged inadvance not to bid against each other

B. he is not familiar with theregular buyers

C. her does not know the valuesof the goods

D. he has never heard of such a thing

试题答案

答案：1C2D3B4A