Question

Read these sentences from paragraph 4 of the passage.

Today, most people on the planet can read. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, about 84 percent of the world's adults were literate in 2011 . . . .

Which words from these sentences help you understand the meaning of the word literate?


most people


can read


the world's adults


UNESCO Institute for Statistics

Reading Passage
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E-Books or Print Books? That Is the Question.

by Kim Nguyen

1 Teenagers curled in armchairs or jet passengers reaching cruising altitudes often reach for a paperback or a print magazine. Today, they are just as likely to grab an e-reader or a tablet and settle down for a cozy, digital read.

A photo shows an e-reader leaning against an open book

2 The e-book revolution is here. One online bookselling behemoth reported it sells more e-books than print books. In 2010 alone, the sales of digital books increased by a whopping 164 percent. In 2013, the Association of American Publishers announced that e-books accounted for 20 percent of all book sales.

3 So, what's the story with both of these kinds of books and, ultimately, which one is better?

How It All Began

4 Almost everyone agrees that the first printed book was the Diamond Sutra. The Diamond Sutra was printed in China in 868 AD. With the later invention of the printing press, reading became increasingly accessible to larger numbers of people. Today, most people on the planet can read. According to the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, about 84 percent of the world's adults were literate in 2011, and the global youth literacy rate topped 89 percent. What have all these people been reading? According to Google, we have had many choices when it comes to books. Google recently estimated that throughout human history about 130 million books have been written. Now think of the books that have sold many, many copies. Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities, for example, has sold over 200 million copies. And that's just one title. No matter how you do the math, there are numerous print books out there.

5 The identity of the first e-book is more controversial. Although seeds were sown as early as 1940, many historians agree that e-books began in the 1960s. In 1971, Michael Hart of the University of Illinois launched Project Gutenberg to make electronic versions of classic texts available to anyone with access to a computer. By 1992, Sony had launched the Data Discman, an electronic book reader. When novelist Peter James published his thriller Host on two discs in 1993, it was billed as the “world's first electronic novel.” However, the reception was grim. “I got absolutely pilloried,” says James. “I was on Today (a morning TV show) accused of killing the novel …99 percent of the press was negative.”

The Advantages of Print Books

Answer 1

can read

This phrase directly explains that "literate" means able to read.