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  3. (1)Two years ago this month, Doubleday published a historical thriller with an announced first printing of 85,000 and high hopes

(1)Two years ago this month, Doubleday published a historical thriller with an announced first printing of 85,000 and high hopes

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问题     (1)Two years ago this month, Doubleday published a historical thriller with an announced first printing of 85,000 and high hopes that a little-known writer named Dan Brown would catch on with the general public.
    (2) "We surely expected to have a huge success, but I don’t think anyone dreamed it would become a historic publication," says Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.
    (3)If the Harry Potter books stand as the essential popular read for young people, then The Da Vinci Code has captured the crown for grown-ups. A word-of-mouth sensation from the moment it came out, Brown’s controversial mix of storytelling and speculation remains high on best-seller lists even as it begins its third year since publication.
    (4)Twenty-five million books, in 44 languages, are in print worldwide and no end is in sight. Booksellers expect The Da Vinci Code to remain a best-seller well into 2005. A planned film version by Oscar-winning director Ron Howard should bring in even more readers. And at a time when consumers are supposedly minding their budgets, sales for the $24.95 hardcover have been so good that Doubleday still has set no date for a paperback.
    (5)"It’s been our No. 1 fiction book for two years in a row, and I can’t remember another time that happened," said Bob Wietrak, vice president of merchandising for Barnes & Noble Inc. "People come into our store all the time and ask for it or ask for books that are like it."
    (6)Thanks to The Da Vinci Code, about the only books that seem able to keep up are Brown’s previous novels. Deception Point, first released in 2001, now has 3.7 million copies in print, according to Simon & Schuster, Brown’s previous publisher. Angels and Demons, published in 2000 and featuring "Da Vinci" protagonist Robert Langdon, has more than 8 million copies in print.
    (7)As millions now know, The Da Vinci Code begins with the murder of Jacques Sauniere, curator of the Louvre Museum in Paris. As he is dying, he realizes he is the only person left to pass on an important secret. Later that night, a visitor from the French equivalent of the FBI awakens Langdon, a Harvard University
professor visiting Paris, summoning him to the Louvre. Langdon, who studies symbols, had an appointment with Sauniere, but the curator never showed up.
    (8)Sauniere is found naked, arms and legs outstretched. Drawn on his chest in his own blood is a five-pointed star. Langdon figures out that Sauniere is positioned like The Vitruvian Man, Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous sketch. He also recalls that the curator was a scholar of all things Leonardo, and that Leonardo himself liked to hide messages in his art.
    (9)More clues are uncovered as Langdon is led to the Mona Lisa, the Madonna of the Rocks and The Last Supper. He recalls that Leonardo was part of a brotherhood that guarded an ancient secret dealing with the quest for the Holy Grail and the story of Jesus Christ. Later, Langdon discovers that Sauniere was Leonardo’s modern-day counterpart.
    (10)The unprecedented success of The Da Vinci Code has been helped by wide access, with the book on sale everywhere from Wal-Mart to airports to supermarkets, often proving more popular than the mass market paperbacks available at the same outlets.
    (11)The Da Vinci Code has also thrived during a time when both literary and commercial novels struggled, when a tight economy, competition from other media and election-year tensions drove the public to nonfiction works or away from books altogether. Publishers and booksellers say Brown’s novel has worked by combining narrative excitement and provocative—and disputed—historical detail.
According to the last paragraph, during the time of tight economy, _______.
选项 A、people were easily distracted by other media
B、The Da Vinci Code was an exceptional success
C、literary novels had to fight against commercial ones for market
D、the public had no other choice of entertainment but nonfiction works
答案B
解析 末段首句中during a time when…，when…暗示在经济紧缩时期，书籍的销量都是不好的，故《达芬奇密码》的畅销是一个例外，B正确。A中的competition from other media在原文中是与a tight economy和election-year tensions并列的成分，这三点都是导致书市低迷的原因，可见，A并不是在tight economy时必然发生的事。从原文末段首句只能推断出文艺小说和商业小说都要挣扎求存，两者本身并非对立的关系，C中的fight against不正确。
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