问答题 1.  Despite rising education levels and the convenience of buying books online, Chinese of every age are reading less and less these days, according to an analysis released by Chinese Academy of Press and Publication. The following article gives detail information of this phenomenon. Read it carefully and write an article of NO LESS THAN 300 words, in which you should:
    1. summarize the article briefly, and then
    2. express your opinion towards the phenomenon.
    Marks will be awarded for content relevance, content sufficiency, organization and language quality. Failure to follow the above instructions may result in a loss of marks.
    Write your article on ANSWER SHEET FOUR.
    While the supply of books has exploded in China in recent decades, people's interest in them has not kept up. According to a survey result published by the Chinese Academy of Press and Publication in February, Chinese people read 4.39 books per capita in the past year, a figure that trails far behind major developed countries. And, on average, Chinese people allocated just over 15 minutes a day to reading, compared to almost 100 to watching television and over 45 for using the Internet.
    Why are the Chinese turning away from reading books? The question has prompted soul-searching among the country's intellectuals. Zhang Lijia, a freelance writer based in Beijing, reminisced fondly about people's passion for reading: "I often had get-togethers with friends where we talked about politics and discussed the books we were reading," she recalled. "There was such a strong spirit of inquiry." That spirit disappeared, Zhang says, by China's single-minded pursuit for economic prosperity, which has left its people with little regard for anything else. "People are too restless, too utilitarian," she reflected. "You need some peace in mind in order to be able to sit down with a book."
    Zhang's opinion is echoed by a number of longtime professionals in the book industry, who, since the early days of the industry's market-driven reform, have kept close watch of the public's changing preference in books. Some of them point out that in addition to turning away from books, Chinese people have also abandoned more serious and intellectually enriching stories in favor of easy reads. "In the last decade, best-sellers in China have less intellectual content and have become increasingly practical," said He Xiongfei, a well-known publisher of popular books since the early 1990s. Best sellers in China today, He says, consist mainly of "child-rearing manuals, cookbooks, health and fitness guides, test-preparation books, thrillers, and romance novels."
    Chinese people now have flocked to the Web for more light-hearted fare. According to a 2012 report from the China Internet Network Information Center, almost 200 million Chinese read online literature, although the term lacks a clear definition. A survey by the Chinese research firm iResearch shows that the ten most popular Chinese literature websites receive a total of 12.2 million visitors on an average day. These websites run the gamut of genres, from romance and horror to science fiction and fantasy, and reader interest helps carve them into more specific niches, like military fantasy novels, "officialdom" literature, and stories about time travel. Some websites require readers to pay a small fee, usually less than 5 RMB (80 cents), to access the most popular serialized novels.
    In the U.S., readers who used to buy physical books now flock to digital stores to find content. China's online readers, however, are choosing e-books for precisely what print books lack: critical and realistic depictions of society, and, more often, a cheap form of escape that, not unlike video games and television, offers them a refuge from the complications and concerns of the real world.