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What made Angels and Demons sell well？
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The human criterion for perfect vision is 20/20 for reading the standard lines on a Snellen eye chart without a hitch. The score is determined by how well you read lines of letters of different sizes from 20 feet away. But being able to read the bottom line on the eye chart does not approximate perfection as far as other species are concerned. Most birds would consider us very visually handicapped. The hawk, for instance, has such sharp eyes that it can spot a dime on the sidewalk while perched on top of the Empire State Building. It can make fine visual distinctions because it is blessed with one million cones (视锥细胞) per square millimeter in its retina (视网膜). And in water, humans are farsighted, while the kingfisher, swooping down to spear fish, can see well in both the air and water because it is endowed with two foveae(凹窝)-areas of the eye, consisting mostly of cones, that provide visual distinctions. One fovea permits the bird, while in the air, to scan the water below with one eye at a time. This is called monocular vision. Once it hits the water, the other fovea joins in, allowing the kingfisher to focus both eyes, like binoculars, on its prey at the same time. A frog's vision is distinguished by its ability to perceive things as a constant motion picture. Known as "bug detectors", a highly developed set of cells in a frog's eyes responds mainly to moving objects. So, it is said that a frog sitting in a field of dead bugs wouldn't see them as food and would starve.
The bee has a "compound" eye, which is used for navigation. It has 15,000 facets that divide what it sees into a pattern of dots, or mosaic. With this kind of vision, the bee sees the sun only as a single dot, a constant point of reference. Thus, the eye is a superb navigational instrument that constantly measures the angle of its line of flight in relation to the sun. A bee's eye also gauges flight speed. And if that is not enough to leave our 20/20 "perfect vision" paling into insignificance, the bee is capable of seeing something we can't ultraviolet light. Thus, what humans consider to be "perfect vision" is in fact rather limited when we look at other species.
However, there is still much to be said for the human eye. Of all the mammals, only humans and some primates can enjoy the pleasures of color vision.
The Snellen eye chart measures one's eyesight by ______.
According to the last paragraph, during the time of tight economy,______.
The Da Vinci Code causes dispute most because of ______.
Section B
Directions: There are 2 passages in this section. Each passage is followed by some questions or unfinished statements. For each of them there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. You should decide on the best choice.
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.
"We surely expected to have a huge success, but I don't think anyone dreamed it would be come a historic publication," says Stephen Rubin, president and publisher of the Doubleday Broadway Publishing Group.
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 anti speculation remains high on best-seller lists even as it begins its third year since publication.
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.
"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."
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, ac cording 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.
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.
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.
When The Da Vinci Code was first published,______.
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