IELTS Reading 練習書店的衰退（含題目+詳解）

The Decline of Bookshops

IELTS · 雅思備考 · 10 min read · 2026-04-25

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主題: The decline and partial recovery of high-street bookshops
文章重點: After two decades of sharp decline caused by Amazon and e-books, independent bookshops have begun to recover by reinventing themselves as something a website cannot replicate.
難度: 中等 · Intermediate
建議時間: 17 分鐘

重要單字

fixture — a familiar, long-standing feature of a place / 常見的固定景象
retreat — a movement back or away; here, decline / 衰退、撤退
undercut — to sell at a lower price than a competitor / 削價競爭
inventory — the total stock of goods available for sale / 庫存
plateaued — reached a stable level after rising / 進入平原期、停止增長
transformed — changed in form or character / 轉變、改造

30 秒快速理解 30-second summary

High-street bookshops collapsed between 1995 and 2016 because Amazon offered a wider range at lower prices and e-readers like the Kindle let people buy books from home. Since 2016, however, UK independent bookshops have grown again as cafes and event venues, and the e-book share has plateaued at around 20 per cent. The shop has been transformed by the internet, not killed by it.

逐段練習 Read paragraph by paragraph

1 段落 1 — A trade in retreat

For most of the twentieth century the high-street bookshop was a fixture of British and American towns. By 2010 the trade was visibly in retreat. In the United Kingdom, the number of independent bookshops fell from roughly 1,890 in 1995 to fewer than 870 by 2016 — a decline of more than half in two decades. A similar pattern hit the United States, where Borders Group, once the country's second-largest bookseller, closed all 642 of its stores in 2011.

本段重要單字 (3)

fixture — a familiar feature of somewhere / 常見的固定景象
retreat — movement backwards; decline / 衰退、撤退
decline — a fall in number or strength / 下降、衰退

Quick Check · 隨堂小測

What does the paragraph mainly tell us?

British and American bookshops grew steadily until 2016.
High-street bookshops were in clear, measurable decline by 2010.
Borders Group was the largest bookseller in the United States.

看答案 · Show answer

答案：B — High-street bookshops were in clear, measurable decline by 2010.

The paragraph gives concrete numbers — UK independents halved between 1995 and 2016 and Borders closed 642 stores — to show the trade was in retreat. Borders is described as second-largest, not largest.

2 段落 2 — Amazon and the e-book

The most often-cited cause is online competition. Amazon, founded in 1994, offered a far wider range of titles, undercut the high-street price by a wide margin and shipped within days. Independent shops, with shelf space for perhaps thirty thousand titles at most, simply could not match the inventory or the price. The arrival of the e-book and dedicated reading devices such as the Kindle from 2007 added a second pressure: even when a customer wanted to read tonight, they no longer needed to leave the house.

本段重要單字 (3)

undercut — to sell at a lower price than a rival / 削價
inventory — the stock of goods available / 庫存
pressure — a force that pushes something to change / 壓力

Quick Check · 隨堂小測

According to the paragraph, why couldn't high-street shops compete with Amazon?

They refused to stock new titles.
They had limited shelf space and higher prices.
They sold only e-books and not paper books.

看答案 · Show answer

答案：B — They had limited shelf space and higher prices.

The paragraph says shops had shelf space for "perhaps thirty thousand titles at most" and "could not match the inventory or the price" — i.e. limited stock and higher prices.

3 段落 3 — A cautious recovery

The picture is not uniformly bleak. After bottoming out around 2016, the number of British independent bookshops has slowly grown again, reaching close to 1,070 by 2023. Owners credit a generation of readers who actively prefer printed books to screens, the rise of the bookshop as a cafe and event venue rather than a pure point of sale, and renewed interest in supporting local businesses after the pandemic. The e-book share of total sales has plateaued at around 20 per cent, not continuing to rise as some commentators predicted.

本段重要單字 (3)

bleak — without hope; gloomy / 黯淡、沒有希望
venue — a place where an event happens / 場地
plateaued — reached a stable level / 停止增長

Quick Check · 隨堂小測

What does "plateaued at around 20 per cent" tell us about e-books?

E-books now account for the majority of book sales.
E-book sales have stopped rising and stayed near 20 per cent.
E-book sales fell sharply between 2016 and 2023.

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答案：B — E-book sales have stopped rising and stayed near 20 per cent.

"Plateaued" means levelled off — the share is stable around 20 per cent, neither a majority (option A) nor a sharp fall (option C).

4 段落 4 — Transformed, not killed

The high-street bookshop, in other words, has not been killed by the internet so much as transformed by it — surviving by being something a website cannot easily replicate. The largest chains have not recovered, but smaller independent shops that combine browsing with coffee, author talks and community events have found a workable niche. The lesson is that physical retail can survive online competition, but only by offering an experience the screen cannot match.

本段重要單字 (3)

transformed — changed in form or character / 轉變
replicate — to copy exactly / 複製
niche — a small, specialised role or market / 利基、定位

Quick Check · 隨堂小測

What is the writer's overall view of the high-street bookshop?

It has been completely destroyed by online retail.
It has been transformed and survives by offering what the screen cannot.
It will return to its 1990s peak within a decade.

看答案 · Show answer

答案：B — It has been transformed and survives by offering what the screen cannot.

The paragraph explicitly says the shop "has not been killed by the internet so much as transformed by it" — survival comes from offering an experience websites cannot replicate.

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閱讀前先看 Before you read

30 秒快速理解 30-second summary

逐段練習 Read paragraph by paragraph

1 段落 1 — A trade in retreat

2 段落 2 — Amazon and the e-book

3 段落 3 — A cautious recovery

4 段落 4 — Transformed, not killed

每天 5 分鐘的系統練習

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