A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alph

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问题     A day after lawmakers grilled the chief executives of the biggest tech companies about their size and power, Amazon, Apple, Alphabet and Facebook reported surprisingly healthy quarterly financial results, defying one of the worst economic downturns on record. Even though the companies felt some sting from the spending slowdown, they demonstrated, as critics have argued, that they are operating on a different playing field from the rest of the economy.
    Amazon’s sales were up 40 percent from a year ago and its profit doubled. Facebook’s profit jumped 98 percent. Even though the pandemic shuttered many of its stores, Apple increased sales of all its products in every part of the world and posted $11.25 billion in profit. Advertising revenue dropped for Alphabet, the laggard of the bunch, but it still did better than Wall Street had expected. "The strong continue to get stronger," said Dan Ives, managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities. "As many companies are falling by the wayside, the tech giants continue to gain muscle and power in this environment." The tech companies’ financial performance was a remarkable contrast to
    the overall health of the U.S. economy. The Commerce Department said on Thursday that the country’s gross domestic product fell 9.5 percent in the second quarter of the year as consumers cut back spending. It was the steepest drop on record.
    Combined, the companies reported $28.6 billion in quarterly net profit, underscoring how regulatory scrutiny remains more background noise and a distraction for them rather than an imminent threat to their businesses. The pandemic has reinforced the advantages held by the big tech companies.
    As consumers stay home, demand for Amazon’s shopping site surged, while companies are turning to its cloud computing products to keep their services up and running. Apple said the shift to working and learning from home had led more people to splurge on Apple’s devices and use its services. Facebook and Google continue to be important to marketers and they are weathering the downturn in advertising better than rivals. Facebook shrugged off a spending slowdown, hailing record levels of engagement with its products. Alphabet said revenue from Google search ads fell 10 percent—pushing the company’s overall revenue lower for the first time in the company’s history—but that still was better than rivals. Last week, Microsoft reported an 18 percent slide in search advertising revenue.
    Since the beginning of March, the companies’ stock prices have risen by an average of 35 percent, compared with a 10 percent rise in the S.&P. 500.
It can be learned from Paragraph 4 that__________.

选项 A、economic downturn boosts the demand of consumers
B、working and learning on line prompts the sales of Apple’s products
C、the U.S. economy is falling into a decline during the pandemic
D、Alphabet struggles with the worrying advertising revenue

答案 B

解析 通过题干关键词Paragraph 4定位至第四段。该段说明了四大科技巨头疫情之下的经营状况。第一、二句说明的是亚马逊和苹果的情况,第三至五句说明的是脸书和阿尔法特公司的情况。第二句提到苹果的情况是:“在家办公和学习让更多人大把花钱购入各种苹果的设备,并使用他们的服务。”(the shift to working and learning from home had led more people to splurge on Apple’s devices and use its services.)也就是说,线上学习和办公促进了苹果产品的销售,选项[B]与此相对应,故为答案。
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