Last year college students in America spent an estimated $700 on textbooks on av

Last year college students in America spent anestimated $700 on textbooks on average. The National Association of CollegeStores reported more than five billion dollars in sales of textbooks and coursematerials.

The association spokesman Charles Schmidt sayselectronic textbooks now just make up 2%～3% of sales. Buthe says that is expected to reach 10%～15% by 2012.

Online versions(版本) are nowavailable for many of the most popular college textbooks. An e­textbook cancost half the price of a new print textbook. But students usually lose accessto them after the end of the term. And the books cannot be placed on more thanone device(设备)，so they arenot easy to share.

So what do students think of e­textbooks？Administrators at Northwest Missouri State Universitywanted to find it out. Earlier this year they tested them with 500 students in20 classes.

The university is unusual. It provides laptopcomputers for all 7,000 of its full­time students. It does not require studentsto buy their textbooks either. They rent them to save money. The school aims tosave even more by moving to e­textbooks.

The students in the survey reported that downloadingthe books from the Internet was easy. They liked the idea of carrying lighterbackpacks. And 56% said they were better able to find information.

But most found that using e­textbooks did not changetheir study habits. And 60% felt they read more when they were reading onpaper. In all，almost half the students said they stillliked physical textbooks better.

But the survey found that cost could be a biginfluence.55% said they would choose e­textbooks if using them meant theirtextbook rental fee would not increase.

Roger Von Holzen heads the Center for InformationTechnology in Education at Northwest Missouri State University. He tells usthat administrators are disappointed with the e­textbooks now available becausethe majority are not interactive(交互式的)．

He thinks growth will come when more digital booksinclude video，activities，gamesand other ways to interact with the information. The technology is improving. Butfor now，most of the books are just words on ascreen.

1.E­textbooks are not better than paper books inthat________.

A．they cost more money

B．they’re difficult tocarry

C．they’re not convenient toshare

D．they can’t be downloadedfrom the Internet

2.How many surveyed students think paper books makebetter reading?

A．60%.   B．56%.                    C．55%.             D．50%.

3.It can be inferred from the text that in thefuture________.

A．digital books will bemore popular    

B．the digital booksavailable need improvement

C．free digital books areavailable online     

D．digital books willreplace print textbooks

试题答案

【答案】

1.C

2.A

3.B

【解析】

试题