？Read the article below about Auction sales.
？Choose the best sentence to fill each of the gaps.
？For each blank 8—12 mark one letter (A—G) on your Answer Sheet.
？Do not use any letter twice.
？This is an example at the beginning.
Auction Sales
Auctions are public sales of goods conducted by an officially approved auctioneer. He asks the crowd gathered in the auction-room to make offers, or "bids", for the various items on sale. He encourages buyers to bid higher figures, and finally names the highest bidder as the buyer of the goods.
(8) . Among these are coffee, skins, wool, tea, fruit, vegetables, and wines. Auction sales are also useful for land and property, antique furniture, pictures, rare books, old china, and works of art. An auction is usually advertised beforehand with a full description of the articles to be sold and (9) . If the advertisement cannot give full details, catalogues are printed, and each group of goods to be sold together, called a "lot", is usually given a number. The auctioneer need not begin with Lot 1 and continue with Lot 2, Lot 3 and so on; he may wait until he sees certain dealers in the room and then produces the lots they are likely to be interested in. The auctioneer's services are paid for (10) . The auctioneer therefore has a direct interest in pushing up the bidding as high as possible.
The auctioneer must know (11) . He will not waste time by starting the bidding too low. He will also encourage the rivals among buyers to bid against each other in order to get a high price. It is largely in his ad vice that a seller will fix a "reserved" price, that is, (12) . Even the best auctioneers, however, find it difficult to stop a "knock-out" (连裆拍货), because dealers illegally arranged beforehand not to bid against each other, but choose one of them as the only bidder, in the hope of buying goods at extremely low prices. If such a "knock-out" succeeds, the real auction sale takes place privately afterwards among the dealers.
A Almost all goods of various qualities are sold by auction.
B a price below which the goods cannot be sold.
C Through Auction the seller usually can get a high price.
D quite accurately the current market values of the goods he is selling, and he should be acquainted with regular buyers of such goods.
E for the various items on sale.
F in the form. of a percentage of the price the goods are sold for.
G where and when they can be viewed by possible buyers.
(8)