1. When was the first real newspaper started?
| A．In 1609. | B．In 1665. | C．In 1704. |
| A．Germany. | B．England. | C．America. |
| A．Strassburg Relation. | B．The New York Sun. | C．The Boston News-Letter. |
| A．It only cost a dollar. |
| B．It was called The London Gazette. |
| C．It was the first one to have advertisements. |
2 . On January 15th, the Guardian showed off its new, smaller look, shifting from its distinctive “Berliner” format to a tabloid(娱乐小报) shape with a redesigned logo in black type. But the more dramatic makeover is of the financial books of Guardian Media Group (GMG), publisher of the Sunday Observer and the daily Guardian, which may find its new operation in the black next financial year. A newspaper business that two years ago was threatened with existentially worrying losses appears on the edge of breaking even.
The turnaround is partly due to steep cost-cutting, which is a dog-bites-man story in journalism. But the Guardian would manage the achievement while still giving away news free online, and that is a story worth telling.
In January 2016 David Pemsel, the new chief executive of GMG, and Katharine Viner, the new editor-in-chief of the Guardian, informed staff that GMG’s endowment fund, meant to ensure the financial security of the paper in the long run, had lost £100m ($140m) in just half a year, taking it to £740m. Mr Pemsel was advised by industry peers to cut costs and put online news behind a paywall. He and Ms Viner cut costs by 20%, or more than £50m. Alan Rusbridger, Ms Viner’s predecessor(前任), had led the newspaper to global relevance with a large online readership. But he spent without thinking of the consequences. In two years GMG has reduced its employees by 400, to about 1,500.
Yet unlike a growing number of newspapers, the Guardian has not put up a paywall. Instead it has pursued a membership model, asking online readers to contribute whatever they like. About 600,000 now do, with annual payments or one-off amounts. American readers tend to choose the latter option, Ms Viner says. GMG says the total figure amounts to tens of millions of pounds per year. Ms Viner says revenue from readers (including 200,000 print subscribers) is now greater than revenue from advertisers.
The result is steadily declining operating losses: from £69m two years ago to £45m last financial year and, Mr Pemsel says, less than £25m in the year that ends on April 1st. He predicts breaking even next year. Giving up its own printing presses and going tabloid will help, saving several million pounds a year. The Guardian may now physically look more like its peers, but its turnaround story remains distinctive.
1. The phrase “in the black”(Paragraph 1) most probably means ______.| A．making profit | B．taking on a new look |
| C．losing support | D．enjoying great popularity |
| A．He advised GMG to cost costs. |
| B．He got the Guardian into trouble. |
| C．He was the founder of GMG’s endowment fund. |
| D．He was fired due to his failure to bring the Guardian online. |
| A．To pay as they like. | B．To skip the advertisements. |
| C．To join its membership club. | D．To connect to other newspapers. |
| A．The Guardian has been reduced to a tabloid. |
| B．The Guardian succeeds by giving away news free online. |
| C．The Guardian turns around by looking more likes its peers. |
| D．The Guardian has broken even by cutting its operation costs. |
| 观点 | 理由 |
| 纸质报纸有存在的意义 | 可以随时阅读，不受时间限制； 版面大，字大，阅读方便； 内容的可信度相对较高。 |
| 纸质报纸没有存在的意义 | 携带不方便;不环保。 |
2.请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Whether printed newspapers should exist?
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________4 . Readers have never had it so good. But publishers need to adapt better to the digital world.
During the next few weeks publishers will release a great number of books, pile them onto delivery lorries and fight to get them on the display tables of bookshops in the run-up to Christmas. It is an impressive display of competitive commercial activity. It is also increasingly pointless.
More quickly than almost anyone predicted, e-books are becoming popular quickly. Amazon, the biggest e-book retailer( 零售商), has lowered the price of its Kindle — e-readers to the point where people do not fear to take them to the beach. In America, the most advanced market, about one-fifth of the largest publishers’ sales are of e-books.
For readers, this is excellent. Amazon has successfully shortened distance by bringing a huge range of books to out-of-the-way places, and it is now fighting against time, by enabling readers to download books instantly. Moreover, huge choice and low prices are helping books hold their own on digital devices. For publishers, though, it is a dangerous time. Some of the publishers’ functions—packaging books and promoting them to shops—are becoming out of date.
Yet there are still important jobs for publishers.
The music and film industries have started to pack electronic with physical versions of their products—by, for instance, providing those who buy a DVD of a movie with a code to download it from the Internet. Publishers, similarly, should combine e-books with paper books.
They also need to become more efficient. In the digital age it is stupid to take months or even years to get a book to market. And if they are to distinguish their products from self-published dross( 糟粕), they must get better at choosing books, sharpening ideas and polishing copy. If publishers are to hold readers’ attention, they must tell a better story—and edit out all the spelling mistakes as well.
1. According to the author, what publishers do before Christmas is becoming __________.| A．efficient | B．satisfying | C．meaningless | D．worthwhile |
| A．By analyzing. | B．By giving examples. |
| C．By comparing. | D．By listing numbers. |
| A．Readers will have a wider choice than before. |
| B．The price of books will become much higher. |
| C．Traditional publishers will be out of work. |
| D．Traditional bookstores will completely disappear. |
| A．Spend more time editing a good book. |
| B．Change work to music and film industry. |
| C．Get rid of self-published dross completely. |
| D．Learn from what music and film industry did. |
| A．The Disappearing Ink. |
| B．The Book and Music Industry. |
| C．Golden Times for Publishers. |
| D．The Coming of the Digital Age. |
5 . What is the future of newspapers as the industry has faced increasing newsprint prices, falling sales and the great drops in circulation (发行量)? In recent years the number of newspapers being closed down has risen, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom. Income has dropped while competition from the Internet has pressed older print publishers a lot.
To live on, newspapers are considering uniting and other choices though the result hasn’t been agreed.
Since the beginning of 2009, the United Sates has seen a number of major newspapers closed after no buyers appeared, including The Rocky Mountain News, closed in February, and The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, reduced to a complete Internet operation. In Detroit, both newspapers, The Detroit Free Press and The Detroit News, cut down home delivery to three days a week, while inviting readers to visit the newspapers’ Internet sites on other days. In Tucson, Arizona, the state’s oldest newspaper, The Tucson Citizen, would stop publishing on March 21, 2009, when parent Gannett Company failed to find a buyer.
A number of other large, financially troubled newspapers are trying to get buyers. One of the few large dailies finding a buyer is The San Diego Union-tribune. It agreed to be sold to a private firm for what The Wall Street Journal called the rock-bottom price over of less than $50 million considered to have been worth about $1 billion in 2004.
In the United Kingdom, newspaper publishers have been similarly hit. In late 2008 The Independent announced job cuts. In January the chain Associated Newspapers sold a controlling stake (股金) in the London Evening Standard as it announced a 24% decline in 2008 as income. In March 2009 parent company Daily Mail and General Trust said job cuts would be deeper than expected.
1. How does the author feel about the future of newspapers?| A．Concerned. | B．Uncaring. | C．Hopeful. | D．Satisfied. |
| A．The Detroit News. | B．The Detroit Free Press. |
| C．The Rocky Mountain News. | D．The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. |
| A．Increasing. | B．Common. | C．Reasonable. | D．Lowest. |
| A．More newspapers in the UK and the USA are closing down. |
| B．Newspaper publishers try to control their employees. |
| C．Newspapers are developing fast in the UK and the USA. |
| D．British newspapers have been losing money. |
6 . In this digital age, information is increasingly digitized through the wide use of technology. Newspapers, magazines and even textbooks are becoming or expected to be digital soon. However, despite the sharp increase of such technology in daily life, print media is far from becoming unnecessary. I don’t think that reading in print is a dying mode.
Firstly, print offers a super reading experience. The feeling of holding a book in our hands, feeling its weight and turning over its pages, helps us to be immersed in and engaged fully with the material. The act of turning over pages also helps to direct ourselves in the concepts and structure of the text. In contrast, reading through a number of pages on a device is unsatisfying, and we can lose track of how much we have read. In addition, the artificial glow of digital screens tires one’s eyes out, and can even affect one’s sleep.
Moreover, physical copies express greater aesthetic (审美的) beauty than digital ones. The designs that beautify book covers and spines make the ideas complete and add beauty to our homes as well. The wrinkles that have accumulated over time leave us with an emotional attachment to the books themselves. Furthermore, the presentation of content in print also allows for greater appreciation of imagery (意象). In contrast to the restrictions of digital screens, the tangible (可触摸的) nature of print allows for clear imagery that is clear and impactful in its presence.
Advocates of digital print support the convenience of the medium. Indeed, e-readers provide a convenient solution to storage and transportation. However, this carries its own weaknesses as well. For one, the use of digital media requires the investment in a smart device. For another, taking notes on the printed text is easier.
In conclusion, despite the conveniences afforded by digital media, physical print still remains a popular mode of reading today. The “less is more” nature of print media remains its strongest selling point today.
1. Which of the following is true according to paragraph 2?| A．Too much digital reading will not influence our health. |
| B．Turning over pages helps to completely understand the texts. |
| C．Reading in print offers readers full engagement with materials. |
| D．Readers can exactly know how much they have read by digital reading. |
| A．A clear imagery. | B．Abundant ideas. |
| C．Emotional dependence. | D．Convenience of transportation. |
| A．To popularize two types of reading modes. |
| B．To persuade people to enjoy digital reading. |
| C．To inform people of a new trend in reading. |
| D．To argue why reading in print will not disappear. |
| A．using examples | B．making a comparison |
| C．asking and answering questions | D．analyzing causes and effects |
Bookroo—Best Book Subscription (订阅) for Ages 0 to 3 | |
| Key Information | Delivery: Monthly. |
| Number: 12. | |
| Price: Price starts at about $20 per month, but there’s a discount (折扣) available; A three-month subscription is $19 per month, a six-month subscription is $18 per month, and a year-long plan is$17 per month | |
| Its Advantages | Books designed for small hands |
| Content to upgrade as kids grow up. | |
| Extra materials included in books. | |
| Its Disadvantages | No choices to return books you don’t like. |
| No way to prevent copies. | |
| Shipping (运费) not included in price. | |
| More Information | With a book plan designed specially for young kids, Bookroo specializes in picking the best books for early childhood. Bookroo is a wonderful choice for your child’s first book subscription plan. Each month comes with three carefully selected books suitable for reading with babies. If you find yourself with a book that you have already had, you can donate it to a local library, and then send Bookroo the proof (证明). You’ll get a $5 discount for your next order. |
| A．$ 17. | B．$ 20. | C．$ 24. | D．$ 36. |
| A．Its books are too large for kids. |
| B．Its shipping costs extra money. |
| C．Its content is only suitable for kids. |
| D．Its books include no other materials. |
| A．Donate it and get a discount from Bookroo. |
| B．Sell it to the local library at a lower price. |
| C．Return it to Bookroo and get a free order. |
| D．Send it to Bookroo and ask for a new one. |
8 . “It’s like tasering an elderly person who’s already on a pacemaker,” says a British newspaper boss of the newsprint market, where prices have risen by over 50% in a matter of months.
When times were good, before ads went online, newspapers had a supportive partnership with paper mills. As ads went away and circulations fell, “paper mills had the worst of it for years as newspapers reduced pages, went wholly digital or shut forever.”
The papers were able to cut down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand decreased. Price-taking paper mills suffered in silence, taking out newsprint capacity and adjusting machines to make packaging for e-commerce. The pandemic, with people working from home, meant even fewer newspaper sales, which depressed demand for newsprint again and increased the pain for paper suppliers. In the past 24 months European mills have responded by shutting almost a fifth of their newsprint capacity, says a buyer for a large British newspaper group.
Then reopening of economies and growing demand for newsprint, combined with much reduced capacity and coupled with up-going energy prices, has resulted in a price shock. Particularly controversial are additional energy charges that some paper suppliers are seeking to pass on.
Newspaper firms consider this amounts as breaking agreements. European newspapers will have to pay newsprint prices that are 50—70% higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the year before. As for their counterparts in Asia and Oceania, they are facing prices around 25% to 45% above their usual level. North American prices went up earlier, and more gradually; agreements are fixed monthly rather than half-yearly. But there, too, newsprint prices are 20—30% higher in 2021 than in 2020.
Germany’s print and media industry association has warned that mills are going to force newspapers to quit paper editions, hurting each other in the process. But more digital adrenaline is one possible response of newspapers to the paper mills’ tasers.
1. What can be learned from the first three paragraph?| A．Newspapers have raised their prices by over 50% . |
| B．Newspapers and paper mills were good friends all the time. |
| C．Newspapers and paper mills affect each other. |
| D．Newspapers increased their sales and the pain of paper mills. |
| A．Reopening of economies. | B．Growing demand for newsprint. |
| C．Much reduced capacity. | D．Additional energy consumption. |
| A．Europe. | B．Asia. | C．Oceania. | D．North American. |
| A．Health. | B．Science. | C．Business. | D．Environment. |
9 . A symbol of a booming children’s book market is a self-styled “kaleidoscope (万花筒) of creative genius for kids”, the magazine Scoop, a startup based in Dalston, east London, which the author Neil Gaiman has described as “the kind of magazine I wish we’d had when I was eight.”
Scoop is the idea of the publisher Clementine Macmillan-Scott. A year ago, hers looked like an impossible venture. But against the odds for little magazines, Scoop has survived. Macmillan-Scott said, “I really wasn’t certain we would get to this point, but we are now approaching our first birthday.” She links the magazine’s fortunes to a prosperous market and reports that “through the hundreds of children, parents and teachers we speak to at our workshops, we know that children are greedy for storytelling.”
Inspired by an Edwardian model, Arthur Mee’s Children’s Newspaperr, Scoop is a mix of innovation and creativity. Establishment heavyweights such as the playwright Tom Stoppard, plus children’s writers such as Raymond Briggs, author of Fungus the Bogeyman, have adopted its cause. The magazine has also given space to 10-year-old writers and pays all contributors, high and low, the same rate — 10p a word.
It’s a winning formula. Macmillan-Scott reports “a quarterly sales increase of roughly 150% every issue”, but is cautious about her good fortune. “It’s all too clear to us that these children are hungry for print.”
Scoop focuses on the most profitable part of the children’s market, Britain’s eight to 12-year-old readers. In literary culture, this is the crucial bridge between toddlers (儿童) and adolescents and its publisher knows it. Macmillan-Scott is committed to listening to readers aged eight to 12, who have an editorial board where they can express their ideas about the magazine. “If we don’t get these children reading,” she says, “we will lose out on adult readers. To be fully literate, you have to start as a child.”
Macmillan-Scott argues against the suggestion that reading is in decline. “If you look at our figures,” she objects, “you’ll find that children do read and that Scoop is part of a craze for reading hardback books. Kids love paper and print. They might play games on a digital device, but they prefer not to read on a Kindle. The real market for e-books is among young adult readers.” Some of her evidence is anecdotal, but her sales figures and readership surveys support a picture of eight to 12-year-olds absorbed in books.
“What our research shows beyond question,” she says, “is that children have a love for reading that’s not seriously threatened by other kinds of entertainment. Reading for pleasure is a very real thing at this age, and the worries that some adults have about children losing interest in reading are simply not grounded in reality.”
1. It can be learned from the passage that Scoop ________.| A．is aimed at teenagers in Britain |
| B．has taken a year to publish its first issue |
| C．has got its name from Arthur Mee’s newspaper |
| D．pays as much to young writers as to famous ones |
| A．conclusive | B．undeniable |
| C．defensive | D．unconvincing |
| A．Children would rather listen to stories than tell stories by themselves. |
| B．Magazines for children aged under 8 are not very common in Britain. |
| C．Scoop illustrates the power of printed books in the face of digital revolution. |
| D．Research carried out by Scoop has been questioned by those writing for children. |
| A．the market for children’s e-books remains to be explored |
| B．a child who dislikes reading won’t love reading when grown up |
| C．other kinds of entertainment have influenced children’s reading habits |
| D．it is necessary for adults to worry about children’s lack of interest in reading |
10 . As technology makes communication easier and quicker, handwritten letters are nearly a thing of the past.
But it is making a comeback on Feng Shengji’s desk. The 34-year-old from Chengdu started an online letter-writing business in February last year, writing and mailing hundreds of letters on behalf of others. She has written letters of appreciation, apologies for wrongdoings, love letters and breakup letters. Her story has spread on social media, triggering wide discussion on the lost art of letter writing. It has been viewed more than 14 million times on Sina Weibo.
The idea of writing letters for others came when Feng tried to draw and write on her iPad to beat boredom during COVID-19. Then, she opened an online store for letter writing. Up till last month, she worked for a local design company in the day, and worked on her online business as a letter writer at night.
In mid-March last year, a doctor from Sichuan became her first client. He was assigned to help fight COVID-19 in Wuhan during the 76-day lockdown. The doctor contacted Feng to help him write thank-you letters to the Wuhan Red Cross Hospital and the hotel he stayed in for their care and support during his time in Wuhan. As mailing services were stopped during the lockdown, Feng wrote the letters on her iPad and emailed the letters. “I told him that I wanted to write the letters free of charge, but he insisted on paying.” Feng recounts.
Since then, her business has taken off. As of January, she has written more than 700 letters , with each letter ranging from dozens of words to thousands. Depending on the length of the letters, each letter can cost from dozens of yuan to less than 100 yuan.
“Letter writing is a meaningful thing, and I want to make it into a lifetime career.” says Feng, smiling. She resigned from her design job and became a full-time letter writer from June.
1. What does the underlined word “triggering” mean in the second paragraph?| A．holding | B．arousing |
| C．witnessing | D．expecting |
| A．To kill time during the pandemic. |
| B．To revive the lost art of letter writing. |
| C．To help the doctors to keep in touch. |
| D．To earn extra money in her spare time. |
| A．Her first customer got the service for free. |
| B．Her business suffered a lot from COVID-19. |
| C．Her business is well received and successful. |
| D．Her letter writing store was started in Chengdu. |
| A．Fighting COVID-19 with handwritten letters |
| B．A creative and successful woman writer |
| C．A written art revived by an online business |
| D．Letter writing — an art calling for preservation |
