The Chinese were the real inventor of printing. Centuries ago they carved messages on stone and then sprinkled (撒) sooty(粉末状的) dust over the stone carving. When they put a small piece of paper over the stone and rubbed the paper, the sooty lines were reproduced on it. Some of these first printed papers have been preserved; the oldest ones known to exist are more than one thousand years old.
Printing with carved stone blocks was the only kind of printing known for centuries. Then, about eight hundred years ago, a Chinese printer, Bi Sheng, had a clever idea. Instead of carving a whole message on a single big block of wood or stone, he formed separate Chinese words or characters out of bits of clay(粘土). By fitting the clay pieces together in rows in a box, he could print just as before. But when he finished, he could keep all the separate pieces of clay and use them again.
Bi Sheng’s movable type was a great step forward, but his method was not generally adopted. Movable type did not come into use in Europe until it was invented there centuries later. The Europeans had been totally ignorant(无知的) of the printing traditions of the Chinese.
60. The oldest pieces of printed paper in existence date back_____.
A. 800 years. B. more than 1000 years
C. more than 2000 years D. 500 years
61. These pieces of clay were _____.
A. easily lost B. less used
C. reusable D. thrown away after use
62. Europeans adopted printing after they _____.
A. realized stone carving was not good enough
B. had learned about it from the Chinese
C. had copied Chinese printing
D. had invented it themselves
科目:高中英语 来源:同步题 题型:阅读理解
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