Last April, on a visit to the new Mall of America near Minneapolis, I carried with me a small book provided for the reporters by the public relations office. It
included a variety of “fun facts” about the mall, for example, 140,000 hot dogs are sold each week, there are 10,000 full-time jobs, 44 sets of moving stairs and 17 lifts, 12,750 parking places, 13,000 tons of steel and $ 1 million is drawn weekly from 8 ATMs. Opened in the summer of 2005, the mall was built where the former Minneapolis Stadium had been. It was only a five-minute drive from the Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport. With 4.2 million square feet of floor space ----- twenty-two times the size of the average American shopping center –the Mall of America was the largest shopping and family recreation center under one roof in the United States.
I know already that the Mall of America had been imagined by its designers, not only as a marketplace, but as a national tourist attaction. Eleven thousand articles, the small book informed me, had been written about the mall. Four hundred trees had been planted in its gardens, $ 625 million had been spent to build it, and 350 stores were already in business. Three thousand bus tours were expected each year along with a half-million Canadian visitors and 200,000 Japanese tourists. Sales are expected to be at $ 650 million for 2008 and at $ I billion for 2009. Pop singers and film stars such as Janet Jackson and Amold Schwarzenegger visited the mall. It was five times larger than Red Square and it included 2.3 miles of hallways and used almost twice as Knott’s Camp Snoopy.
60. We know from the text that the Mall of America is _________.
A.near an old stadium B.close to an airport
C.higher than the Eiffel Tower D.bigger than most American parks
61. Why are the pieces of information provided by the Mall of America referred to as “fun facts”?
A.They are largely imagined. B.They are surprising figures(数字)
C.They give exact descriptions. D.They make people feel uneasy.
62. Why does the author mention popular stars who have been to the mall?
A.To show its power of attraction.
B.To show that few rich people like to shop there.
C.To tell the public about a new movie being made about it.
D.To tell people that they have chances of meeting famous stars there.
63. We can infer from the text that _______.
A.Japanese visitors are most welcome to the mall
B.Canadian visitors would spend $ I billion at the mall
C.Knott’s Camp Snoopy was next to the Mall of America
D.the Mall of America was designed to serve more than one purpose(目的)