Textbooks represent an 11 billion dollar industry, up from $8 billion in 2014. Textbook publisher Pearson is the largest publisher—of any kind—in the world.

    It costs about $1 million to create a new textbook. A freshman textbook will have dozens of contributors, from subject-matter experts through graphic and layout artists to expert reviewers and classroom testers. Textbook publishers connect professors, instructors and students in ways that alternatives, such as open e-textbooks and open educational resources, simply do not. This connection happens not only by means of collaborative development, review and testing, but also at conferences where faculty regularly decide on their textbooks and curricula for the coming year.

    It is true that textbook publishers have recently reported losses, largely due to students renting or buying used print textbooks. But this can be chalked up to the excessively high cost of their books—which has increased over 1,000 percent since 1977. A restructuring of the textbook industry may well be in order. But this does not mean the end of the textbook itself.

    While they may not be as dynamic as an iPad, textbooks are not passive or lifeless. For example, over the centuries, they have simulated (模拟) dialogues in a number of ways. From 1800 to the present day, textbooks have done this by posing questions for students to answer inductively (归纳性地). That means students are asked to use their individual experience to come up with answers to general questions. Today’s psychology texts, for example, ask: “How much of your personality do you think you inherited?” while ones in physics say: “How can you predict where the ball you tossed will land?”

    Experts observe that “textbooks come in layers, something like an onion.” For an active learner, engaging with a textbook can be an interactive experience. Readers proceed at their own pace. They “customize” their books by engaging with different layers and linkages. Highlighting, Post-It notes, dog-ears and other techniques allow for further customization that students value in print books over digital forms of books.

解析：A。根据textbook industry和选项中的内容可定位至第三段。本段第一句表明，由于学生租用和购买二手书导致教科书出版商的销售下降，并出现亏损，本段最后一句又讲到，产业重组不可避免。A项中的reform its structure是文中A restructing of the textbook industry的同义转述，因此选A。C项中的“纸质书替代品”已经出现，但这并不是教科书产业要做的事，属于细节拼凑，故排除。 原文第三段虽然提到教科书成本高，但并没有说教科书产业应该降低售价或者改变商业策略，文中没有提到B、D两项的关键词retail prices和business strategy，故这两项属于过度推断，排除。