2019年12月四级第2套仔细阅读 Passage 1 原文翻译及答案解析

Textbooks represent an 11 billion dollar industry, up from 8 billion in 2014. Textbook publisher Pearson is the largest publisher—of any kind—in the world.

教科书产业价值110亿美元，较2014年的80亿美元有所增长。教科书出版商培生是全球最大的出版商，无论哪种类型。

It costs about 1 million dollars to create a new textbook. A freshman textbook will have dozens of contributors, from subject-matter experts through graphic and layout artists to expert reviewers and classroom testers. Textbook publishers connect professors, instructors, and students in ways that alternatives, such as open e-textbooks and open educational resources, simply do not. This connection happens not only by means of collaborative development, review, and testing, but also at conferences where faculty regularly decide on their textbooks and curricula for the coming year.

编写一本新教科书的成本约为100万美元。一本大学新生教材会有数十位贡献者，包括主题专家、图形和排版设计师、专家审阅者和课堂测试者。教科书出版商将教授、讲师和学生联系起来，而像开放电子教科书和开放教育资源这样的替代方式则无法做到。这种联系不仅通过协作开发、审阅和测试实现，还在会议上实现，教师在这些会议上定期选定来年的教材和课程。

It is true that textbook publishers have recently reported losses, largely due to students renting or buying used print textbooks. But this can be chalked up to the excessively high cost of their books—which has increased over 1,000 percent since 1977. A restructuring of the textbook industry may well be in order, but this does not mean the end of the textbook itself.

教科书出版商近期确实报告了亏损，主要原因是学生租借或购买二手纸质教科书。但这可以归因于书籍价格过高——自1977年以来涨幅超过1000%。教科书产业或许需要重组，但这并不意味着教科书本身的消亡。

While they may not be as dynamic as an iPad, textbooks are not passive or lifeless. For example, over the centuries, they have simulated (模拟) dialogues in a number of ways. From 1800 to the present day, textbooks have done this by posing questions for students to answer inductively (归纳性地). That means students are asked to use their individual experience to come up with answers to general questions. Today's psychology texts, for example, ask: "How much of your personality do you think you inherited?" while ones in physics say: "How can you predict where the ball you tossed will land?"

尽管教科书可能不如iPad那样富有动态性，但它们并非被动或毫无生气。例如，几个世纪以来，教科书通过多种方式模拟了对话。从1800年至今，教科书通过提出问题让学生归纳性地回答来实现这一点。这意味着学生被要求利用个人经验来回答一般性问题。例如，当代心理学教材会问：“你认为你的个性有多少是遗传的？”而物理教材则说：“你如何预测你抛出的球会落在哪里？”

Experts observe that "textbooks come in layers, something like an onion." For an active learner, engaging with a textbook can be an interactive experience: readers proceed at their own pace. They "customize" their books by engaging with different layers and linkages. Highlighting, Post-It notes, dog-ears, and other techniques allow for further customization that students value in print books over digital forms of books.

专家指出，“教科书是分层的，犹如洋葱一般。”对于主动学习者而言，使用教科书可以是一种互动体验：读者按自己的节奏阅读。他们通过接触不同的层次和链接来“个性化”自己的书籍。高亮、便利贴、折角等技巧允许进一步的个性化，学生们在纸质书中比数字形式的书籍更珍视这种体验。