Question

 Learning to play a musical instrument can change your brain. A US review has found that musical training can improve speech and foreign language skills.

  Although it was suggested in the past that listening to Mozart's music or other classical mu?sic make you smarter, there has been little evidence to show that music can boost brain power.

  But a data-driven review by Northwestern University has pulled research together that links between musical training and learning can affect skills including language，speech，memory，at?tention and even vocal emotion.

  Researcher Nina Kraus said the data strongly suggested that the neural(神经中枢的) connec?tions made during musical training also prepared the brain for other aspects of human communi?cation.

  "The effect of musical training suggests that music is a resource that tones(增强) the brain for auditory(听觉的) fitness and thus requires society to re-examine the role of music in encoura?ging individual development.”the researchers said in their study.

  Kraus said learning musical sounds could improve the brain's ability to adapt and change and also enable the nervous system to provide constructive patterns that are important to learn?ing.

  The study,published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience, showed the improvement of re?search in recent years focusing on the effect of musical training on the nervous system which could have strong impact on education.

  The study found that playing an instrument prepares the brain to choose what is related in the complex process that may involve reading or remembering a score，timing issues and coordi?nation(协 调) with other musicians.

  "A musician's brain selectively enhances information -bearing elements in sound," Kraus said in a statement. The study also reviewed literature showing, for example, that musicians are more successful than " non-musicians in learning to connect sound patterns for a new language with words.

(   ) 1. The passage is mainly about        .

   A.researches on musical instruments

   B.the study of music

   C.the effect of classical music

   D.the benefit of musical training

(   ) 2. It was believed but hasn't been proved that listening to classical music could

   A.boost your intelligence

   B.improve your speech abilities

   C.develop the ability to learn languages well

   D.make you feel happy

(   ) 3. According to the study,musicians are better at learning a foreign language because

   A.they are better at remembering a score.

   B.they are more sensitive to changes

   C.they are better at connecting sounds with words in a foreign language D，they can cooperate better with others

(   ) 4. Which field might the study have a great effect on?

A. Arts   B. Education   C. Music   D. Medicine

Answer 1

1—4 DACB 

A本文介绍了美国的一项研究，讲述了音乐训练带来的好处。

1.D根据文体特点，主旨大意应在第一段。文章的第一段概括地讲述了音乐训练带来的好处。

2.A根据文章第二段的解释可知倾听古典音乐可以使人更加聪明，但迄今为止还没有证据来证明。

3.C由文章的最后一段可知,音乐家更擅长学习外语主要是因为他们能更好地把声音与单词联系起来，更容易记住单词。

4.B根据文章最后三段可知，本次研究可能会对教育有着极大的影响。