UNIT 8: THE ULTIMATE SURVIVOR – Exercise 2

Read the following passage about Cải Lương and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the option that best fits each of the numbered blanks from 18 to 22.
Some people think that e-books will replace printed books in the near future. For dictionaries and encyclopedias this is already true. Wikipedia, for example, gives you more than a multivolume encyclopedia can give you.
The e-book industry, however, still faces many problems. There are many different types of formats for e-books, and the book you may want to read may not be available in a certain format. Publishers develop their own format ___(1)___.
Microsoft Reader is one of the e-book formats that allow ___(2)___ to read on your machine. Recently Sony has started a worldwide campaign on the digital reader sector. The Sony Reader is a handheld device that has been on the market for just about a year. It is about the size of a paperback and can also store PDFs, photos and music. The battery lasts about 7500 pages ___(3)___. It can hold 80 books ___(4)___. Sony’s new invention weighs about 200 grams, is 2 cm thick and has a 15 cm long screen. It costs about 240 €.
Amazon has developed a small device called the Kindle. It can display books, magazines and newspapers. Users can download thousands of books found in the Amazon store. Major publishers, like Random House, think that as consumers are doing more work on computers every day, they may also be reading more books on screen as well. Right now the company offers about 6,000 e-books. They cost about 2 € a book ___(5)___. The high costs of paper books are caused by printing and distribution.
(Adapted from english-online.at/media/ebooks/are-we-ready-for-ebooks.htm)