15. People now spend a lower
(A) share of their income
(B) on clothing than ever before, but the number of items
(C) purchased each year
(D) have ballooned.



III. Cloze: Choose the most appropriate answer from the four options given.(20%)

# A Cloud-Based Restaurant Revolution: Just Kitchen

An excerpt in Taiwan Panorama by Wu Ching-wen/ tr. By Scott Williams

While Covid-19 has devastated the revenues of dine-in restaurants, it has also facilitated the emergence and rapid growth of cloud kitchens. In the years before the pandemic, most food delivery platforms offered only a limited menu, and few top-tier restaurants provided any kind of delivery option at all. But the pandemic has brought changes to food delivery, greatly expanding the offerings of "order online" platforms.

Surprisingly, even as Taiwan's mid-2021 Covid outbreak _16_ and people returned to restaurant dining rooms, many _17_ chose to retain their online offerings. According to a 2021 whitepaper by iChef, a Taiwanese provider of point-of-sale systems to restaurants, revenues from deliveries grew from only 2.5% of restaurant sales in the fourth quarter of 2019, just before the pandemic started, to 10% of revenues in the fourth quarter of 2021, when Taiwan had very few _18_ Covid cases. The latter figure suggests that consumer behavior has changed, and that food services have now entered the digital era.

# The rise of cloud kitchens

With no physical storefront and no established business reputation, how do cloud kitchens, also known as "ghost kitchens," _19_ members of the public to place orders with them? Food writer Yeh Yilan believes that trust in the brand is _20_. She explains that when an already well-known and well-regarded dine-in restaurant launches a delivery service, the brand's reputation gives consumers the confidence to give it a try. New brands, on the other hand, must create consumer _21_ through their brand's values. For example, "Many cloud kitchens offer low-calorie or low-glycemic-index meals. The key selling point of such meals is their 'healthiness,' a value that _22_ office workers. For these consumers, the meals' taste is a secondary consideration."

Cloud kitchens are hardly the first restaurants to standardize and automate food and beverage production processes. In fact, chain restaurants and fast-food restaurants have been doing so for years. But cloud kitchens have differentiated themselves by _23_ personal service to the _24_ minimum, creating even clearer and more standardized production lines. "While there is a market necessity for this kind of thing," says Yeh, "people expect more from dine-in restaurants, such as when they gather with friends on the weekend." Cloud kitchens aiming to deliver restaurant-quality meals have to _25_ higher standards.