听力篇章

　　Section B

　　Passage 1

　　Barbie dolls have a particular look to them. They’re thin, tall, long-legged and virtually unlike any real human being. Although over the years Barbie has had more than 180 different careers-including football coach, sign language teacher, ambassador, president and astronaut–her body shape hasn’t changed much.

　　Last year Mattel, the company that makes Barbie dolls, added some Barbies to its line that have different skin tones and hair textures. There are now Barbies with one of seven skin tones, 22 eye colours and 24 hair styles to choose from. Last year Mattel also gave Barbie a flat foot, rather than forcing her to be “in heels” all the time like the original Barbie is.

　　Now they are introducing new Barbies with three slightly different body shapes while the original, tall and thin Barbies will continue to be sold.

　　In a statement on its website, the company says it wants Barbies to look more like real people, and to give girls everywhere infinitely more ways to spark their imagination and play out their stories.

　　Although many people say the new Barbies are a step in the right direction, some people say they don’t go far enough. They say that the new body shapes could be even more different from the original, tall, thin Barbies.

　　Sales of Barbie dolls have been falling “every year since 2012,” according to CBC News.

　　The toys aren’t in stores yet but they will be sold online at the Barbie website, starting this week, for $9.99.

　　Q9. What do we know about the original Barbie dolls?

　　Q10. Why do some people feel unsatisfied with the new Barbie dolls?

　　Q11. Where will the new Barbie dolls be sold first?

　　Passage 2

　　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 the 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.

　　Q12. What happened in Germany around the year of 1450?

　　Q13. What does the speaker say about the printer, Plantin of Antwerp?

　　Q14. What was the immediate effect of printing?

　　Q15. What was the great cultural impact of printing?

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