2017年12月英语六级(第1套)听力真题 短文(2)

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

12. A) Moveable metal type began to be used in printing.
B) Chinese printing technology was first introduced.
C) The earliest known book was published.
D) Metal type was imported from Korea.
13. A) It had more than a hundred printing presses.
B) It was the biggest printer in the 16th century.
C) It helped the German people become literate.
D) It produced some 20 million volumes in total.
14. A) It pushed handwritten books out of circulation.
B) It boosted the circulation of popular works.
C) It made writing a very profitable career.
D) It provided readers with more choices.
15. A) It accelerated the extinction of the Latin language.
B) It standardized the publication of grammar books.
C) It turned translation into a welcome profession.
D) It promoted the growth of national languages.

Passage Two

The earliest printed book we know today appeared in China in the year 868 and metal type was in use in Korea at the beginning of the fifteenth century, but it was in Germany around the year 1450 that a printing press using movable metal type was invented.

Capitalism turned printing from an invention into an industry.

Right from the start, book printing and publishing were organized on capitalist lines.

The biggest sixteenth-century printer, Plantin of Antwerp, had twenty-four printing presses and employed more than a hundred workers.

Only a small fraction of the population was literate, but the production of books grew at an extraordinary speed.

By 1500 some twenty million volumes had already been printed.

The immediate effect of printing was to increase the circulation of works that were already popular in a handwritten form, while less popular works went out of circulation.

Publishers were interested only in books that would sell fairly quickly in sufficient numbers to cover the costs of production and make a profit.

Thus, while printing enormously increased access to books by making cheap, high-volume production possible, it also reduced choice.

The great cultural impact of printing was that it facilitated the growth of national languages.

Most early books were printed in Latin, but the market for Latin was limited, and in its pursuit of larger markets the book trade soon produced translations into the national languages emerging at the time.

Printing indeed played a key role in standardizing and stabilizing these languages by fixing them in print, and producing dictionaries and grammar books.

Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

12. What happened in Germany around the year 1450?

13. What does the speaker say about the printer, Plantin of Antwerp?

14. What was the immediate effect of printing?

15. What was the great cultural impact of printing?

短文二

已知最早的印刷书籍于868年在中国出现。十五世纪之初朝鲜就使用了金属印刷。1450年德国发明了使用金属活字的印刷机。

资本主义将印刷从一项发明发展为一项产业。

书籍印刷从开始就由资本家组织。

十六世纪最大的印刷业大亨是安特卫普的普兰廷，他拥有二十四台印刷机，雇佣了超过一百名工人。

只有一小部分人受过教育，但书籍产量飞速增长。

到1500年印刷了约两千万卷书籍。

印刷的直接影响下，手写版就已经流行的书籍得到更多传播，不那么流行的作品却不再传播。

出版商只在意那些卖得很快很多的书籍，以此抵消成本，赚取利润。

因此，印刷使得低成本大量制造书籍有了可能，由此极大提高了人们获取书籍的机会，不过也减少了选择。

印刷术对文化的一大影响在于促进了本土语言的发展。

早期印刷的大多是拉丁文书籍，但拉丁文书籍的市场有限，为了获取更大的市场利益，图书业立刻生产当时兴起的本国语言译本。

通过印刷品中修正语言，以及生产字典和语法书籍，印刷确实在语言的标准化和稳定化中起了关键作用。

请根据你刚刚听到的对话回答问题12至问题15。

问题12：1450年德国发生了什么？

问题13：关于印刷大亨安特卫普的普兰廷，说话者说了些什么？

问题14：印刷的直接影响是什么？

问题15：印刷对文化的巨大影响是什么？