2014考研英語（一）新題型密押模擬題（2）

　　二、排序題

　　Passage 1

　　Directions: For question 1—5, choose the most suitable paragraphs from the list A—G and fill them into the numbered boxes to form a coherent text. Paragraphs A and D have been correctly placed.

　　[A] Subscription has proved by far the best way of paying for high�瞦uality television. Advertising veers up and down with the economic cycle, and can be skipped by using digital video recorders. And any outfit that depends on advertising is liable to worry more about offending advertisers than about pleasing viewers. Voluntary subscription is also preferable to the compulsory, universal variety that pays for the BBC and other European public broadcasters. A broadcaster supported by a tax on everyone must try to please everyone. And a government can starve public broadcasters of money, too—as the BBC is painfully learning.

　　[B] What began as an interesting experiment has become the standard way of supporting high�瞦uality programming. Most of the great television dramas that are watched in America and around the world appear first on pay�睺V channels. Having shown others how to make gangster dramas with “The Sopranos”, HBO is laying down the standard for fantasy with “Game of Thrones”. Other pay�睺V channels have delved into 1960s advertising (“Mad Men”), drug dealing (“Breaking Bad”) and Renaissance court society (“The Borgias”). Pay�睺V firms outside America, like Britain�餾 BSkyB, are beginning to pour money into original series. Talent is drifting to pay�瞭elevision, in part because there are fewer appealing roles in film. Meanwhile, broadcast networks have retreated into a safe zone of sitcoms, police procedurals and singing competitions.

　　[C] But pay television is now under threat, especially in America. Prices have been driven so high at a time of economic malaise that many people simply cannot afford it. Disruptive, deep�瞤ocketed firms like Amazon and Netflix lurk, whispering promises of internet�瞕elivered films and television shows for little or no money. Whether the lure of such alternatives or poverty is what is causing people to cancel their subscriptions is not clear. But the proportion of Americans who pay for TV is falling. Other countries may follow.

　　[D] Pay TV executives argue that people will always find ways of paying for their wares, perhaps by cutting back on cinema tickets or bottled water. That notion seems increasingly hopeful. Every month it appears more likely that the pay TV system will break down. The era of ever�瞘rowing channel choice is coming to an end; cable and satellite distributors will begin to prune the least popular ones. They may push “best of basic” packages, offering the most desirable channels—and perhaps leaving out sport. In the most disruptive scenario, no longer unimaginable, pay�睺V would become a free for all, with channels hawking themselves directly to consumers, perhaps sending their content over the internet. How can media firms survive in such a world?

　　[E] Fifteen years ago nearly all the television shows that excited critics and won awards appeared on free broadcast channels. Pay�瞭elevision (or, as many Americans call it, “cable”) was the domain of repeats, music videos and televangelists. Then HBO, a subscription outfit mostly known for boxing and films, decided to try its hand at hour long dramas.

　　[F] But television as a whole should emerge stronger. If people buy individual channels rather than a huge bundle, they will have to think about what they really value—the more so because each channel will cost more than it does at present. Media firms will improve their game in response. The activity that diverts the average American for some four and a half hours each day should become more gripping, not less.

　　[G] It won�餿 be easy. They will have to start marketing heavily: at present the pay�睺V distributors do that for them. They must produce much more of their own programming. Repeats and old films lose their appeal in a world in which consumers can instantly call up vast archives. If they are to sell directly to the audience they will have to become technology firms, building apps and much slicker websites than they have now, which anticipate what customers might want to watch.

　　1→2→A→3→D→4→5

　　Passage 2

　　Directions: For question 1—5, choose the most suitable paragraphs from the list A—G and fill them into the numbered boxes to form a coherent text. Paragraphs D and E have been correctly placed.

　　[A] For publishers, though, it is a dangerous time. Book publishing resembles the newspaper business in the late 1990s, or music in the early 2000s. Although revenues are fairly stable, and the traditional route is still the only way to launch a blockbuster, the climate is changing. Some of the publishers functions—packaging books and promoting them to shops—are becoming obsolete. Algorithms and online recommendations threaten to replace them as arbiters of quality. The tide of self�瞤ublished books threatens to swamp their products. As bookshops close, they lose a crucial showcase. And they face, as the record companies did, a near�瞞onopoly controlling digital distribution: Amazon’s grip over the ebook market is much like Apple’s control of music downloads.

　　[B] They also need to become more efficient. Digital books can be distributed globally, but publishers persist in dividing the world into territories with separate editorial staffs. In the digital age it is daft to take months or even years to get a book to market. And if they are to distinguish their wares from self�瞤ublished dross, they must get better at choosing books, honing 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.

　　[C] For readers, this is splendid. Just as Amazon collapsed distance by bringing a huge range of books to out�瞣f�瞭he�瞱ay places, it is now collapsing time, by enabling readers to download books instantly. Moreover, anybody can now publish a book, through Amazon and a number of other services.

　　[D] During the next few weeks publishers will release a crush of books, pile them onto delivery lorries and fight to get them on the display tables at the front of bookshops in the run�瞮p to Christmas. It is an impressive display of competitive commercial activity. It is also increasingly pointless.

　　[E] Yet there are still two important jobs for publishers. They act as the venture capitalists of the words business, advancing money to authors of worthwhile books that might not be written otherwise. And they are editors, picking good books and improving them. So it would be good, not just for their shareholders but also for intellectual life, if they survived.

　　[F] More quickly than almost anyone predicted, e�瞓ooks are emerging as a serious alternative to the paper kind. Amazon, comfortably the biggest e�瞓ook retailer, has lowered the price of its Kindle e�瞨eaders 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. Newly released blockbusters may sell as many digital copies as paper ones. The proportion is growing quickly, not least because many bookshops are closing.

　　[G] They are doing some things right. Having watched the record companies impotence after Apple wrested control of music pricing from them, the publishers have managed to retain their ability to set prices. But they are missing some tricks. The music and film industries have started to bundle 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 bundle e books with paper books.

　　D→1→2→3→E→4→5