在英语四级考试之前我们要认真做历年真题。我们在做真题的过程中，要注意继续巩固英语基础，掌握真题中出现的每一个单词、词组和疑难句。一起来看一下这篇2014年6月大学英语四级长篇阅读真题吧!
SectionB
Directions: In this section, you are going toread a passage with ten statements attached to it. Each statement containsinformation given in one of the paragraphs Identify the paragraph from whichthe information is derived. You may choose a paragraph more than once. Eachparagraph is marked with a letter. Answer the questions by marking thecorresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2.
The End of the Book?
[A] Amazon, by far the largestbookseller in the country, reported on May 19 that it is now selling more booksin its electronic Kindle format than in the old paper-and-ink format. That isremarkable, considering that the Kindle has only been around for four years.E-books now account for 14 percent of all book sales in the country and areincreasing far faster than overall book sales. E-book sales are up 146 percentover last year, while hardback sales increased 6 percent and paperbacksdecreased 8 percent.
[B]Does this spell the doom of the physical book? Certainly not immediately, andperhaps not at all. What it does mean is that the book business will go througha transformation in the next decade or so more profound than any it has seensince Gutenberg introduced printing from moveable type in the 1450s.
[C]Physical books will surely become much rarer in the marketplace. Mass marketpaperbacks, which have been declining for years anyway, will probablydisappear, as will hardbacks for mysteries, thrillers, “romance fiction,” etc.Such books, which only rarely end up in permanent collections, either privateor public, will probably only be available as e-books within a few years.Hardback and trade paperbacks for “serious” nonfiction and fiction will surelylast longer. Perhaps it will become the mark of an author to reckon with thathe or she is still published in hard copy.
[D]As for children’s books, who knows? Children’s books are like dog food in thatthe purchasers are not the consumers, so the market (and the marketing) isinherently strange.
[E]For clues to the book’s future, let’s look at some examples of technologicalchange and see what happened to the old technology.
[F]One technology replaces another only because the new technology is better,cheaper, or both. The greater the difference, the sooner and more thoroughlythe new technology replaces the old. Printing with moveable type on paperdramatically reduced the cost of producing a book compared with theold-fashioned ones handwritten on vellum, which comes from sheepskin. A Bible—tobe sure, a long book—required vellum made from 300 sheepskins and countlessman-hours of labor. Before printing arrived, a Bible cost more than amiddle-class house. There were perhaps 50,000 books in all of Europe in 1450.By 1500 there were 10 million.