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  3. In the newsprint market, prices have risen by over 50％ in a matter of months. The cost of paper that feeds into presses around t

In the newsprint market, prices have risen by over 50％ in a matter of months. The cost of paper that feeds into presses around t

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问题     In the newsprint market, prices have risen by over 50％ in a matter of months. The cost of paper that feeds into presses around the world is rising to record highs.
    When times were good, before ads shifted online, newspapers had a supportive partnership with paper mills. As ads departed and circulations fell, newspapers and paper mills are now at the shouting stage.
    Paper mills had the worst of it for years as newspapers reduced pages, went wholly digital or shut for good. The papers were able to hammer down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand declined. Price-taking paper mills suffered in silence. Many hesitated to shut massive machines costing hundreds of millions of dollars.
    That hesitance has disappeared; mills are taking out newsprint capacity and diversifying. Many mills are converting machines to make packaging. UPM, a Finnish firm, announced this year the sale of its Shotton newsprint mill in Wales to a Turkish maker of containerboard and packaging. For JCS Volga, a Russian mill, newsprint used to account for 70％ of production; now half of what it makes is packaging.
    The pandemic, with people working from home, meant even fewer newspaper purchases, which depressed demand for newsprint and increased the pain for paper suppliers. In the past 24 months European mills have responded by shutting almost a fifth of their newsprint capacity.
    Then economies reopened. Newsprint demand shot up. That, combined with much reduced capacity and coupled with soaring energy prices, has resulted in a price shock.
    Newspaper firms reckon this amounts to breaking contracts. European newspapers will have to pay newsprint prices that are 50％—70％ higher in the first quarter of 2022 compared with the year before. As for their counterparts in Asia and Oceania, they are facing prices around 25％ to 45％ above their usual level.
    Germany’s print and media industry association has warned that mills are going to force newspapers to dump paper editions, hurting each other in the process. But mills can sell packaging instead. "We’re not going to save the publishing industry by being unprofitable ourselves," says the executive of JCS Volga.
    For some publishers, price rises will wipe out profits. They will need to do further restructuring involving axing titles and layoffs. That will lower demand and nudge the market back towards equilibrium. But newspapers will have more hard conversations about paper. More digitization is one possible reply to the soaring prices of newsprint.
It can be learned from the first three paragraphs that________.
选项 A、newspapers pushed up the cost when they fought for business
B、paper mills had to accept low prices as demand declined
C、newspapers lacked enough power to influence newsprint prices
D、newspaper circulations fell due to rising newsprint prices
答案B
解析 推断题。根据题干可定位至前三段。第三段第二句说The papers were able to hammer down the cost of newsprint from firms fighting for business as demand declined (报社能够从因需求下降而争夺业务的公司那里压低新闻用纸的成本)，由此可知，在新闻用纸需求降低的情况下，造纸厂无力议价，只能低价出售新闻用纸，B项符合文意，故正确。A项属于是非混淆，造纸厂的业务竞争让新闻用纸价格更低，故排除该选项。C项属于是非混淆，从第三段第二句可以看出，报社可以降低新闻用纸成本，能够影响新闻用纸价格，故排除该选项。D项属于主观臆断，第一段提到新闻用纸价格上涨，第二段提到报纸的发行量下降，但并未提及二者之间具有因果联系，故排除该选项。故本题答案为B项。
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