Shopping in Japan Unlike millions of Britons, who will not know how much the Christmas turkey, child's bicycle and the January sales have __1__ them until the credit card bill arrives, the Japanese __2__ to settle up before they've even __3__ their shopping list. The Japanese like to improve on every idea, even if the idea is cash. So they have been __4__ about the pre-paid card. It __5__ the bother of banknotes and it saves the Japanese __6__ the fear of being in __7__ to someone else. It __8__ with the convenient pre-paid telephone card and has __9__ through train ticket cards, taxi cards, and supermarket cards all the way to McDonald's hamburgers cards. Few Westerners can understand why anyone __10__ want to give money to a supermarket or a department store __11__ by buying a pre-paid card. But credit companies are held in some suspicion in Japan. People have traditionally preferred cash and will happily stroll the streets with quite large __12__ of money in their pockets. The fact that street crime is fairly __13__ helps. Pre-paid cards are now as __14__ as chopsticks and twice as convenient. About 500 million cards were sold in the first five years after they became __15__ .
  
  1.
  A) lost
  B) cost
  C) charged
  D) priced
  2.
  A) prefer
  B) desire
  C) enjoy
  D) select
  3.
  A) written about
  B) written off
  C) written out
  D) written up
  4.
  A) keen
  B) enthusiastic
  C) exciting
  D) eager
  5.
  A) does away with
  B) does out of
  C) does without
  D) does out
  6.
  A) of
  B) from
  C) for
  D) by
  7.
  A) payment
  B) bill
  C) debt
  D) interest
  8.
  A) opened
  B) invented
  C) introduced
  D) started
  9.
  A) followed
  B) developed
  C) changed
  D) turned
  10.
  A) would
  B) will
  C) may
  D) must
  11.
  A) in time
  B) in front
  C) in future
  D) in advance
  12.
  A) savings
  B) sums
  C) deposits
  D) masses
  13.
  A) seldom
  B) slight
  C) rare
  D) slow
  14.
  A) common
  B) usual
  C) regular
  D) often
  15.
  A) prepared
  B) possible
  C) ready
  D) available