同等学力英语每日一练（-12-30） 参与同等学力的考生们，学苑教育献上同等学力英语每日一练，我们将每天公布 1--5道习题，协助大家扎实基础。大家可随时关注学苑教育同等学力考试频道，我们将第一时间公布有关考试信息。In 1998 consumers could purchase virtually anything over the Internet. Books，compact discs，and even stocks were available from World Wide Web sites that seemed to spring up almost daily. A few years earlier ，some people had predicted that consumers accustomed to shopping in stores would be reluctant to buy things that they could not see or touch in person. For a growing number of time-starved consumers，however，shopping from their home computer was proving to be a convenient alternative to driving to the store.A research estimated that in 1998 US consumers would purchase $ 7.3 billion of goods over the Internet，double the 1997 total. Finding a bargain was getting easier owing to the rise of online auctions and Web sites that did comparison shopping on the Internet for the best deal.For all the consumer interest ， retailing in cyberspace was still a largely unprofitable business ， however. Internet pioneer Amazon.Com ， which began selling books in 1995 and later branched into recorded music and videos，posted revenue of $ 153.7 million in the third quarter，up from $ 37.9 million in the same period of 1997. Overall，however，the company’s loss widened to $ 45.2 million from $ 9.6 million，and analysis did not expect the company to turn a profit until . Despite the great loss，Amazon.Com had a stock market value of many billion，reflecting investors’ optimism about the future of the industry.Internet retailing appealed to investors because it provided an efficient means for reaching millions of consumers without havi...
