IELTS
JOURNAL
133
Exercise 68: Paragraph headings
Match two of the following headings with the paragraphs below.
1. Rapid sales of printing presses.
2. The revolutionary impact of the printing press.
3. New information and ideas.
4. The printing boom.
From a single point of origin, Mainz, Germany, printing
spread within several
decades to over two hundred cities in a dozen European countries. By 1500,
printing presses in operation throughout Western Europe had already produced
more than twenty million volumes. In the 16th century,
with presses spreading
further afield, their output rose tenfold to an estimated 150 to 200 million copies.
The operation of a press became so synonymous with the enterprise of printing
that it lent its name to an entire new
branch of media, the press.
In Renaissance Europe, the arrival of mechanical movable
type printing introduced
the era of mass communication which permanently altered the structure of society.
The relatively unrestricted circulation of information and ideas transcended borders
and threatened the power of political and religious authorities. The
sharp increase
in literacy broke the monopoly of the literate elite on education and learning and
bolstered the emerging middle class.
