Questions 12 to 15 are based on the passage you have just heard.

Passage Two

    The earliest printed book we know today appeared in China in the year 868, and metal type was in use in Korea at the beginning of the 15th century, （12）but it was in Germany around the year 1450, that a printing press using movable metal type was invented. Capitalism turned printing from an invention into an industry. Right from the start, book printing and publishing were organized on capitalist lines. （13）The biggest 16th century printer, Plantin of Antwerp, had 24 printing presses and employed more than a hundred workers. Only a small fraction of the population was literate, but the production of books grew at an extraordinary speed. By 1500 some 20 million volumes had already been printed. （14）The immediate effect of printing was to increase the circulation of works that were already popular in a hand-written form, while less popular works went out of circulation. Publishers were interested only in books that would sell very quickly in sufficient numbers to cover the costs of production and make a profit.

    Thus, while printing enormously increased access to books by making cheap, high-volume production possible, it also reduced choice. （15）The great cultural impact of printing was that it facilitated the growth of national languages. Most early books were printed in Latin, but the market for Latin was limited, and in its pursuit of larger markets, the book trade soon produced translations into the national languages, emerging at the time.

    Printing indeed played the key role in standardizing and stabilizing these languages by fixing them in print and producing dictionaries and grammar books.

14. What was the immediate effect of printing?

解析：B。问题为：印刷的直接效应是什么？根据原文所在句The immediate effect of printing was to increase the circulation of works that were already popular in a hand-written form, while less popular works went out of circulation可知，印刷的直接结果是受欢迎的手写作品发行量加大，不受欢迎的作品则不再发行。B）It boosted the circulation of popular works（它刺激了受欢迎作品的发行）与原文表达意义一致。