section II Reading Comprehension

　　Part A

　　Directions:

　　Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B,Cor D. Mark your answers on the ANSWER SHEET. (40 points)

　　Text 1

　　A decade ago, in suitably ironic fashion, Amazon reached into customers’ electronic shelves and deleted copies of Nineteen Eighty-Four which it had sold to them. Now another Big Tech firm is gearing up for a spate of digital text destruction. When Microsoft closes its ebook store later this month, every novel, biography, self-help guide and history book it sold will cease to work.

　　These stories of vanishing books reveal the unpleasant reality behind the convenience of online purchases. In the information age, consumers are often renters with limited control of digital products, even if these have apparently been “sold” to them. The case of the Microsoft store also demonstrates how systems for protecting copyright can penalise customers who have made legal purchases.

　　Microsoft is offering full refunds, plus $25 for users who have annotated their copies. Reimbursementscannot remove the feeling that retailers have been duplicitousin branding. They may point to small print showing they have loaned out books, but in many cases they have deliberately advertised them as being “sold” to users. Customers would be scandalisedif employees of a bricks-and-mortarstore pulled physical books from their nightstand on similar grounds.

　　The Microsoft case also shows how anti-piracy measures are not ready to deal with the closure of services. Digital Rights Management stops the copying of electronic content such as books, and music, and checks if they have been legally purchased. Microsoft’s decision to shut down its ebook DRM servers means that verification cannot take place. While there are ways to circumvent DRM, they remain illegal for most purposes in the US and EU. Given the speed at which tech companies and services rise and fall, the risk of DRM-induced disappearances will only grow.

　　A future in which retailers move to selling customers online products rather than in effect leasing them out — or one in which publishers drop DRM measures — is unlikely. Yet there are steps which can be taken to avoid repeating the errors of Microsoft and Amazon. Customers should be clearly presented with the truth about their ownership of products. Amazon, Microsoft and Apple all offer explicit digital rentals alongside “purchases”. They should clarify that the difference between those two categories is far smaller than their names might suggest. It is not enough to hide that fact in the small print, so that it is discovered only when content is yanked away.

　　Anti-privacy systems should also be future-proofed. Tech services and products are routinely killed off if they fail to meet expectations. Sellers should ensure that customers can migrate products they have paid for in those cases. To fail to do so will simply incentivise more illegal downloads.

　　Microsoft and Amazon’s motives have been apolitical. Yet their ability to destroy texts with ease and without consent remains slightly terrifying. The firefighters of Fahrenheit 451 and censors of Nineteen Eighty-Four look like rank amateurs in comparison. The revival of the physical bookshop and its paper-based products is no bad thing in that light. A book in hand could well be worth two on an ereader.21. In the opening paragraph, the author introduces the topic by

　　[A] unfolding a phenomenon

　　[B] raising an argument

　　[C] drawing an analogy

　　[D] making a contrast

　　22. The Microsoft case reveals the truth that

　　[A] customers tend not to make full use of what they buy

　　[B] online stores cannot ensure the quality of their products

　　[C] people are more attached to physical books than ebooks

　　[D] customers don't have true ownership of digital products

　　23. The word“duplicitous" (Line 2, Para. 3) is closest in meaning to

　　[A] cautious

　　[B] dishonest

　　[C] unanimous

　　[D] aggressive

　　24. We can learn from Paragraph 4 that DRM

　　[A] will quicken the innovation of tech companies

　　[B] was not designed to handle services' closure

　　[C] is often criticized by tech companies

　　[D] is effective in protecting ebooks from piracy

　　25. To avoid Microsoft's error, the author suggests that tech companies

　　[A] stop offering services for digital purchases

　　[B] ask publishers to abandon DRM measures

　　[C] enable legally purchased content to be migrated before closed

　　[D] try to compensate affected consumers with physical products

相关文章：
【招生简章】2021海南海大源MBA/MPA/MTA考试面授培训班

【课表】2021海南海大源MBA/MPA/MTA培训课表