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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 and mark the corresponding letter on Answer Sheet 2 with a single line through the centre.
Passage One
Questions 52 to 56 are based on the following passage.
The longest bull run in a century of art-market history ended on a dramatic note with a sale of 56 works by Damien Hirst, Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, at Sotheby’s in London on September 15th 2008. All but two pieces sold, fetching more than ￡70m, a record for a sale by a single artist. It was a last victory. As the auctioneer called out bids, in New York one of the oldest banks on Wall Street, Lehman Brothers, filed for bankruptcy, triggering the most severe financial crisis since the 1920s.
The world art market had already been losing momentum for a while after rising bewilderingly since 2003. At its peak in 2007 it was worth some $65 billion, reckons Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics, a research firm — double the figure five years earlier. Since then it may have come down to $50 billion. But the market generates interest far beyond its size because it brings together great wealth, enormous egos, greed, passion and controversy in a way matched by few other industries.
In the weeks and months that followed Mr. Hirst’s sale, spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable. In the art world that meant collectors stayed away from galleries and salerooms. Sales of contemporary art fell by two-thirds, and in the most overheated sector, they were down by nearly 90% in the year to November 2008. Within weeks the world’s two biggest auction houses, Sotheby’s and Christie’s, had to pay out nearly $200m in guarantees to clients who had placed works for sale with them.
The current downturn in the art market is the worst since the Japanese stopped buying Impressionists at the end of 1989. This time experts reckon that prices are about 40% down on their peak on average, though some have been far more volatile (動蕩的). But Edward Dolman, Christie’s chief executive, says, “I’m pretty confident we’re at the bottom.”
What makes this slump different from the last, he says, is that there are still buyers in the market, whereas in the early 1990s, when interest rates were high, there was no demand even though many collectors wanted to sell. Christie’s revenues in the first half of 2009 were still higher than in the first half of 2006. Almost everyone who was interviewed for this special report said that the biggest problem at the moment is not a lack of demand but a lack of good work to sell. The three Ds — death, debt and divorce — still deliver works of art to the market. But anyone who does not have to sell is keeping away, waiting for confidence to return.
52. In the first paragraph, Damien Hirst’s sale was referred to as “a last victory” because .
A) the art market had witnessed a succession of victories
B) the auctioneer finally got the two pieces at the highest bids
C) Beautiful inside My Head Forever won over all masterpieces
D) it was successfully made just before the world financial crisis
53. By saying “spending of any sort became deeply unfashionable” (Line 1-2, Para.3), the author suggests that .
A) art collection as a fashion had lost its appeal to a great extent
B) collectors were no longer actively involved in art-market auctions
C) people stopped every kind of spending and stayed away from galleries
D) works of art in general had gone out of fashion so they were not worth buying
54. What do we learn about the art market from the passage?
A) Nobody has confidence in the future of the art market.
B) The art market surpassed many other industries in momentum.
C) The art market generally went downward in various ways.
D) Sales of contemporary art rose dramatically from 2007 to 2008.
55. The three Ds mentioned in the last paragraph are .
A) auction houses’ favorites C) factors promoting artwork circulation
B) contemporary trends D) styles representing impressionists
56. What is mainly discussed in the passage?
A) Art market in decline. C) Fluctuation of art prices.
B) Up-to-date art auctions. D) Shifted interest in arts.
