1．Motion pictures were exhibited to the public in the late 1800s, though the first device to accomplish this would seem very unfamiliar to today's movie-going audiences.Thomas Edison's 1893 Kinetoscope was little more than a wooden box with a small glass window. Intended only for individual viewing, it housed a roll of film, a mechanical device to circulate the film, and a small light to illuminate it. A person would peer through the window and watch a short moving sequence, usually just a depiction of an everyday event or the performance of an acrobat or dancer. Needless to say, the medium's ability to serve only one customer at a time severely limited its profitability.
2．Everything changed two years later with the advent of projection, by which a much larger film image could be shown to multiple viewers simultaneously. The Lumière brothers of France were the first to introduce this new technology with a projection machine called a cinematograph. Edison was quick to follow their lead and created his Vitascope projector in late 1895. With the potential to make money by charging admission to movies now within reach, the innovators of the film industry were ready to expand their business ventures.
3．There were two industry models in practice during the early 1900s. A handful of successful firms, such as the Biograph Company, owned the equipment to make their own films as well as the venues in which to display them. Such companies were rare, however; most films were shown by independent exhibitors. These included traditional theater owners, who added short film presentations to their programs of live-action entertainment, and traveling cinema exhibitors, who moved from town to town to reach new audiences, often following circuits established by rural fairs. They typically purchased films directly from the production companies that made them, paying a set price per foot of film regardless of its content. Because movies of the time were never longer than one or two minutes, it was feasible to buy them outright. However, this system failed to attract significant audiences as the public soon tired of the small stock of films exhibitors had to offer, and the reels of film themselves deteriorated quickly through repeated transport and screening in traveling cinema shows.
4．Things changed again when producers began increasing the length of their films in order to tell more complex stories. Longer films entailed higher prices, and it became difficult for small-scale exhibitors to purchase them. This, in turn, prevented production studios from creating as many movies as they could, since they had no one to sell them to. It was precisely this dilemma that gave rise to the film exchange. An early version of a motion-picture distributor, film exchanges were responsible for bridging the gap between production and exhibition.They financed production studios, giving them the funds they needed to film more movies. Then, they purchased these films and rented them out to exhibitors around the country for a fraction of what it would have cost the exhibitors to purchase the films themselves.
5．The film-exchange system revolutionized the industry, greatly benefiting all parties involved. Film rentals allowed exhibitors to show a wide variety of movies and gave them constant access to new films so they could change their programs frequently. This led to the rise of what we now know as the movie theater, a venue dedicated solely to the public exhibition of films. Film exchanges made money by taking a percentage of ticket sales, and the production studios were paid by the exchanges,

单选题 The word it in the passage refers to
A. device.
B. film.
C. window.
D. sequence.

单选题 In Paragraph 1, the author states that Kinetoscope films
A. offered a limited range of subject matter.
B. required patience from the viewer.
C. were projected on a glass surface.
D. received acclaim from the general public.

单选题 Based on the information in Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2, what can be inferred about the cinematograph and the Vitascope projector?
A. They were greatly influenced by Edison's earlier inventions.
B. They both were very different from today's projection devices.
C. Their inventors worked together to create them.
D. They both made more money than the Kinetoscope had.

单选题 Why does the author mention the Biograph Company?
A. To identify the most successful company in the film industry at the time.
B. To describe an exception to a trend in film exhibition in the early 1900s.
C. To discuss the first addition of films to traditional entertainment programs.
D. To illustrate the model on which most other small film companies were based.

单选题 The word circuits in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. traditions.
B. assemblies.
C. rules.
D. routes.

单选题 According to Paragraph 3, how was the price of a film determined?
A. By the physical proportions of the film itself.
B. By the popularity of the film's content.
C. By the success of the film in the past.
D. By the distance exhibitors had to travel to buy it.

单选题 Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.
A. The lack of variety and short life of film reels prevented the industry from experiencing real success.
B. In order to attract larger audiences to their showings, exhibitors needed to expand their stocks of films.
C. Due to difficulties transporting the films long distances, traveling cinemas were not commercially successful.
D. The public soon began demanding higher-quality films, but most exhibitors were unable to obtain them.

单选题 The word entailed in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. founded.
B. contained.
C. required.
D. allowed.

单选题 What can be inferred from Paragraph 4 about film exchanges?
A. They charged high rental prices for the films they owned.
B. They possessed large amounts of startup capital.
C. They participated in both production and exhibition.
D. They broadened the market for films overseas.

单选题 In Paragraph 5, the author suggests that the rise in profits that came with the success of movies
A. led to an improvement in the overall quality of films.
B. was captured primarily by the film exchanges.
C. pressed studios to keep the production quota.
D. was most beneficial to film exhibitors.

单选题 According to Paragraph 6, what caused the disappearance of film exchanges?
A. The increased profitability of the film industry.
B. A shift in preference toward Hollywood distributors.
C. The formation of corporate film monopolies.
D. A decline in the quality of their services.

单选题 Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.
Nickelodeons, so named because the cost of admission was a nickel, appeared first, but fancier exhibition halls opened to suit bigger audiences and more refined tastes.
Where would the sentence best fit?
Click on a square [■] to add the sentence to the passage.
A. Square Ａ.
B. Square Ｂ.
C. Square Ｃ.
D. Square Ｄ.

填空题 Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting theTHREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
During the early years of America's film industry, several changes took place in attempts to make films more profitable.
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A. Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope holds the distinction of being the first device ever created that could exhibit motion-picture films to an audience.
B. Due to the obvious limitations of the Kinetoscope, it was the introduction of projection that first gave businessmen hopes of making money from showing movies.
C. In the early 1900s, theater owners and traveling exhibitors purchased films directly from the studios but enjoyed little success in displaying them to the public.
D. The audiences' demand for more elaborate stories resulted in longer films, which meant that most exhibitors could no longer afford to buy them outright.
E. Early film exchanges would rent out exhibition halls, giving a cut of the ticket sales to both the theater owner and the film production company.

F. The creation of film exchanges gave exhibitors access to a steady stream of films and enabled the industry to grow.