Scientific publishing has long been a licence to print money. Scientists need journals in which to publish their research, so they will supply the articles without monetary reward. Other scientists perform the specialised work of peer review also for free, because it is a central element in the acquisition of status and the production of scientific knowledge.

With the content of papers secured for free, the publisher needs only find a market for its journal. Until this century, university libraries were not very price sensitive. Scientific publishers routinely report profit margins approaching 40% on their operations at a time when the rest of the publishing industry is in an existential crisis.

The Dutch giant Elsevier, which claims to publish 25% of the scientific papers produced in the world, made profits of more than £900m last year, while UK universities alone spent more than £210m in 2016 to enable researchers to access their own publicly funded research; both figures seem to rise unstoppably despite increasingly desperate efforts to change them.

The most drastic, an thoroughly illegal, reaction has been the emergence of Sci-Hub, a kind of global photocopier for scientific papers, set up in 2012, which now claims to offer access to every paywalled article published since 2015. The success of Sci-Hub, which relies on researchers passing on copies they have themselves legally accessed, shows the legal ecosystem has lost legitimacy among its users and must be transformed so that it works for all participants.

In Britain the move towards open access publishing has been driven by funding bodies. In some ways it has been very successful. More than half of all British scientific research is now published under open access terms: either freely available from the moment of publication, or paywalled for a year or more so that the publishers can make a profit before being placed on general release.

Yet the new system has not yet worked out any cheaper for the universities. Publishers have responded to the demand that they make their product free to readers by charging their writers fees to cover the costs of prep ring an article. These range from around £500 to $5,000, and apparently the work gets more expensive the more that publishers do it. A report last year pointed out that the costs both of subscriptions and of these “article preparation costs” had been steadily rising at a rate above inflation.

In some ways the scientific publishing model resembles the economy of the social internet: labour is provided free in exchange for the hope of status, while huge profits are made by a few big firms who run the market places. In both cases, we need a rebalancing of power.

1.Scientific publishing is seen as “a licence to print money” partly because _________.

A its funding has enjoyed a steady increase

B its marketing strategy has been successful

C its payment for peer review is reduced

D its content acquisition costs nothing

解析：选D。D 细节理解题。首段首句提出科学出版业一本万利（a licence to print money），第二三句分别指出，科学文献的供稿与审稿皆为无偿进行，即科学出版业在“内容获取”方面投入的成本为零。可见D正确。

2.According to Paragraphs 2 and 3, scientific publishers Elsevier have _________.

A thrived mainly on university libraries

B gone through an existential crisis

C revived the publishing industry

D financed researchers generously

解析：选A。A 细节理解题。第二段初步说明，大学图书馆是科学文献的购买主力；第三段为第二段的具体例证，以“爱思唯尔盈利之巨”与“英国图书馆购买科学文献花销之大”证明爱思唯尔等科学出版商主要依靠大学图书馆赚取巨额利润。因此A正确。

3.How does the author feel about the success of Sci-Hub?

A Relieved.

B Puzzled.

C Concerned.

D Encouraged.

解析：选C。C 观点态度题。第四段第一句thoroughly illegal（完全不合法）初步暗示作者对Sci-Hub的质疑态度；第二句评述Sci-Hub的成功带来的启示：科学出版业合法的生态体系在其用户中已失去合理/正统性（the legal ecosystem has lost legitimacy），该合法体系必须彻底改变（must be transformed），以重获权威/合理性。由此可见，作者通过非法（无版权保障的）网站的大获成功反向凸显当前科学出版业态的弊病之重，改革之迫切（如不进行自我改革，事态可能会进一步恶化，催生更多危及各方合法权利的非法事物），可见作者对Sci-Hub等非法网站的成功其实是感到担忧的，C正确。

4.It can be learned from Paragraphs 5 and 6 that open access terms _________.

A allow publishers some room to make money

B render publishing much easier for scientists

C reduce the cost of publication substantially

D free universities from financial burdens

解析：选A。A 推理判断题。第五、六段围绕“开放出版条款”展开论述，其中第五段第三句指出“选择开放获取出版”需遵循的方式之二——付费一年或更久，之后转为免费获取（pay walled for a year or more），并指出这种模式使出版机构有一些时间进行盈利（so that the publishers can make a profit）。因此A正确。

5.Which of the following characterizes the scientific publishing model?

A Trial subscription is offered.

B Labour triumphs over status.

C Costs are well controlled.

D The few feed on the many.

解析：选D。D 细节理解题。末段首句指出，（众多科学家）付出免费劳动，而赚取巨额利润的却是控制行业的少数大公司，由此可知，科学出版业中，少数（大公司）以多数（科学家的免费劳动）为食，从而发展壮大。D正确。