Question

A new study suggests that sad music might actually arouse positive emotions. The finding helps to explain why people enjoy listening to sad music, say Ai Kawakami and her colleagues from Tokyo University of the Arts and the RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Japan. Ai Kawakami and her colleagues asked 44 volunteers, including both musicians and nonspecialists, to listen to two pieces of sad music and one piece of happy music. Each participant was required to use a set of keywords to rate both their perception(观念) of the music and their own emotional state.
The sad pieces of music included Glinka’s La Separation in F minor and Blumenfeld’s Etude Sur Mer in G minor. The happy music piece was Granados’s Allegro de Concierto in G major. To control the “happy” effect of major key, they also played the minor key(小调) pieces in major key, and vise versa.
The researchers explained that sad music aroused contradictory emotions because the participants of the study tended to feel sad to be more tragic and less romantic than they felt themselves while listening to it.
“ In general, sad music causes sadness in listeners, and sadness is regarded as an unpleasant emotion. If sad music actually arouses only unpleasant emotion, we would not listen to it,” the researchers wrote in the study.
“Music that is believed as sad actually causes romantic emotion as well as sad emotion.And people, regardless of their musical training, experience this ambivalent(矛盾的) emotion to listen to the sad music,” added the researchers.
Also, unlike sadness in daily life, sadness experienced through art actually feels pleasant, possibly because the latter does not cause an actual threat to our safety. This could help people to deal with their negative emotions in daily life, concluded the authors.
“Emotion experienced by music has no direct danger or harm unlike the emotion experienced in everyday life. Therefore, we can even enjoy unpleasant emotion such as sadness. If we suffer from unpleasant emotion aroused through daily life, sad music might be helpful to alleviate negative emotion,” they added.
小题1: People enjoy listening to sad music because _______.

A．sad music may help arouse positive emotions

B．sad music can make people relax

C．Sad music has a positive effect on people’s health

D．many experts recommend people to listen to sad music

小题2:We can learn from the passage that _______.

A．sad music only causes sadness in listeners

B．Only musicians were invited to take part in the survey

C．The volunteers were asked to listen to three pieces of music in all

D．Granados’s Allegro de Concierto in G major can cause positive emotions

小题3:The underlined word “alleviate” in the last paragraph means “         ”.

A．add

B．strengthen

C．cause

D．reduce

小题4:What is the main idea of this passage?

A．People should listen to sad music.

B．Happy music can make people sad.

C．Sad music may actually cause positive emotions.

D．Sad music is really bad to people.

Answer 1

小题1:A
小题2:C
小题3:D
小题4:C

试题分析：文章介绍一项调查的结果，悲伤的歌曲可以激发人们积极的情绪，因为这种悲伤不是人们日常生活中经历的悲伤，对人们没有伤害，而且经常听悲伤的歌曲，可以有助于人们对抗消极的情绪。
小题1:细节题：从第一段的句子：A new study suggests that sad music might actually arouse positive emotions. The finding helps to explain why people enjoy listening to sad music, 可知人们喜欢听悲伤的歌曲，因为悲伤的歌曲可以激发人们积极的情绪，选 A
小题2:细节题：从第一段的句子：Ai Kawakami and her colleagues asked 44 volunteers, including both musicians and nonspecialists, to listen to two pieces of sad music and one piece of happy music. 可知志愿者总共被要求听三首曲子，选C
小题3:猜词题：根据倒数第二段的句子：because the latter does not cause an actual threat to our safety. This could help people to deal with their negative emotions in daily life, concluded the authors.悲伤的曲子可以有助于人们处理生活中的负面的情绪，最后一段说，如果人生中有消极的情绪，悲伤的曲子可以减少这种负面的情绪，“alleviate” =reduce，选D
小题4:主旨题：从第一段的句子：A new study suggests that sad music might actually arouse positive emotions. 说明悲伤的歌曲可以激发人们积极的情绪，通过研究表明：unlike sadness in daily life, sadness experienced through art actually feels pleasant, 悲伤的歌曲确实可以激发人们积极的情绪 ，选C