[The passage below is accompanied by a set of six questions. Choose the best answer to each question.
alone, more than 5,600 stores could lose, according to industry estates, many of them the brand
name anchor outlets that real estate developers once Stambled over themselves to court Already there have
been 5,300 retail closings tis year . Sears Holdings-~which owms Kanart~-said in March that there's
Substantal doute it can stay i business arogether, and ll close 300 stores this year So farts year, re
national retas chains have Fed for bankruptcy
Local jobs are a major casually of what analysts are calling, with only a unt of
aporalypse Since 2002, cepartmant stores have lost 448,000 jobs, a 25% decline, whule the number cf
closures this year ison pace to Surpass the worst depais of tha Great Recession The growth of online realer,
manie, has failed 1 offoet those loses, withthe e-commasce sector adding just 178,000 jobs over the
[past 1S years, Some of those ‚ots can be found in the massive ciswioution centers Amazon has opened across
fhe country, often or too far from malls e company helped Shure.
But tose are workplaces, not gathering places The malls both, And in the 61 years since the first enclosed
one opened in suburban Minneapolis, the shopping mal has been where a huge swath of middleclass
“marca went for far mere than shopping. It was the home of fist obs and baina dates, te place for Female
photos and car Pres, where goths and grandmothers cou somehow walk through the saree doors and
fina something they al uked. Sure, the food was lousy for you and tne oceans of Parkang lots encouraged car
heavy development, smetning now scamed by contemporary planners. But for better or worse, ine mall has
been Americas public square forthe last 60 yea
So what happens when It aisappears?
Think Of your mall. Or think ofthe one you went to aS ki, Think of the perfume clouds in the department
stores. The fountains splashing below the skylights. The cinnarnon wafting from the food court AS far bac as
Ancient Greece, societies have congrepated around a central marketplace In medieval Europe, they were
Outside cathedrals For half of the 20% century and almost 20 years into the nevr one, much of America has
found their agora on the terazz0 between Orange Julius and Sbarro, Waldenbooks and the Gap, Sunglass Hut
nd Het Topic
That mall was an ecosystem unto :tslf a combination of community and commercialism pag everything
you needed and everything you didn't Magic Eye posters, wind catchers, Air Jordans.
A growing number of Americans, however, dant ses the nesd 9 go to any Macy's at al. Our digital ves are
frictionless and rithiessiy efficient, wath retail and romance available at a click Mells were designed for
leisure. abundance, ambling, You parked and plarined to spend some time Today, much of tet arte has been
Elven over to busier lives and Second jobs and apps that let you swipe ight ini of haunt the food court
Malls, siness professor Leonard Schlesinger, “were built for patterns of socal interaction that
tncreasinely dors exist
‘Sub questions «
13 Question 1 91045986 Question Type: MCO Option Suing: Yes Display Question Number; Yes
Siig Che Question Option No Ofi One Verl
ne central idea of this passage is that
Options
1 theclosure of malis has affected the economic and social if of middle-class America
2% mead
vantages of ras outwei
sadvantenes
3. Y mails used to perform a social function that has been Jost
4 ® mals are losing down because people have found alternate ways to Shop.
distribution centers Amazon has opened across the
pany helped Shure?