Many people believe that teaching children music makes them smarter, better able to learn new things. But the organizers of a new study say there's no scientific evidence that early musical training affects the intelligence of young people.

An estimated 80 percent of American adults think music lessons improve children's abilily to learn or their performance in school. They say that the satisfaction for learning to play a new song helps a child express creativity.

Researchers at Harvard University, however, have found that there's one thing musi­cal training does not do. They say it does not make children more intelligent. Samuel Mehr is a graduate student at Harvard's School of Education. He said it is wrong to think that learning to play a musical instrument improves a child's intellectual development. He says the evidence comes from studies that measured the mental ability of two groups of 4-year-olds and their parents. One group attended music class, the other went to a class that places importance on the visual arts—arts that can be seen.

"The evidence there is 'no'. We found no evidence for any advantage on any of these tests for the kids participating in these music clases," said Mehr.Samuel Mehr says researchers have carried out many studies in an effort to learn whether musical training can make children smarter. He says the results have been mixed. He says only one study seems to show a small percentage increase in IQ, intellectual scores among students after one year of music lessons. He does not believe that IQ is a good measure of child's intelligence. He says researchers in his study compared how well children in the musical training group did on mental processing tasks or projects, then the results were compared to those of children who did not take lessons. There was no evidence that the musical training group did much better on the mental tasks than the other group.

The researchers comfirmed the results with a larger group of children and their par­ents.Mr Mehr says music lessons may not offer children a fast easy way to gain entry to the best schools later of their life. But he says the training is still important for cultural reasons. In his words, "We teach music because music is important for us."

1.According to the new study, musical training______.

A. makes children smarter????????????????????????

B. helps a child express creativity

C. does not make children more intelligent??????????

D. improve children's ability to learn in school

2.Samuel Mehr may agree that______.

A. the children who attended music class are smarter than those who attended arts class

B. IQ is a good measure of a child's intelligence

C. we needn't to teach children music

D. music training is still important for cultural reasons

3.In order to confirm his view, Samuel Mehr______.

A. conducted more than one research

B. interviewed many American adults

C. taught two groups of 4-yetr-olds music and arts

D. offered children a fast way to be admitted to the best schools

4.The artical may be taken from a report about _____.

A. health????????????? B. education????????????? C. ????????????? culture????????????? D.economy

Shopping is not as simple as you may think! There are all sorts of tricks at play each time we reach out for that particular brand of product on the shelf． Colouring, for example, varies according to what the producers are trying to sell．Health foods are packaged （包装） in greens, yellows or browns because we think of these as healthy colours．Ice cream packets are often blue and expensive goods, like chocolates, are gold or silver．

When some kind of pain killer was brought out recently, researchers found that the colours turned the customers off because they made the product look weak and ineffective．

Eventually, it came on the market in a dark blue and white package—blue because we think of it as safe, and white as calm． The size of a product can attract a shopper．But quite often a bottle doesn’t contain as much as it appears to．

It is believed that the better-known companies spend, on average, 70 per cent of the total cost of the product itself on packaging!

The most successful producers know that it’s not enough to have a good product．The founder of Pears soap, who for 25 years has used pretty little girls to promote （推销） their goods, came to the conclusion: “Any fool can make soap, but it takes a genius to sell it．”

1.Which of the following may trick a shopper into buying a product according to the text?

       A．The cost of its package．         B．The price of the product．

       C．The colour of its package．       D．The brand name of the product．

2.The underlined part “the colours turned the customers off”（in Par A．3 ） means that the colours _____．

       A．attracted the customers strongly         B．had weak effects on the customers

       C．tricked the customers into shopping      D．caused the customers to lose interest

3.Which of the following is the key to the success in product sales?

       A．The way to promote goods．               B．The discovery of a genius．

       C．The team to produce a good product．   D．The brand name used by successful producers．

4.Which of the following would be the best title for this text?

       A．Choice of Good Products                     B．Disadvantages of Products

       C．Effect of Packaging on Shopping         D．Brand Names and Shopping Tricks

Shopping is not as simple as you may think! There are all sorts of tricks at play each time we reach out for that particular brand of product on the shelf． Colouring, for example, varies according to what the producers are trying to sell．Health foods are packaged （包装） in greens, yellows or browns because we think of these as healthy colours．Ice cream packets are often blue and expensive goods, like chocolates, are gold or silver．

When some kind of pain killer was brought out recently, researchers found that the colours turned the customers off because they made the product look weak and ineffective．

Eventually, it came on the market in a dark blue and white package—blue because we think of it as safe, and white as calm． The size of a product can attract a shopper．But quite often a bottle doesn’t contain as much as it appears to．

It is believed that the better-known companies spend, on average, 70 per cent of the total cost of the product itself on packaging!

The most successful producers know that it’s not enough to have a good product．The founder of Pears soap, who for 25 years has used pretty little girls to promote （推销） their goods, came to the conclusion: “Any fool can make soap, but it takes a genius to sell it．”

Which of the following may trick a shopper into buying a product according to the text?

       A．The cost of its package．         B．The price of the product．

       C．The colour of its package．       D．The brand name of the product．

The underlined part “the colours turned the customers off”（in Par A．3 ） means that the colours _____．

       A．attracted the customers strongly         B．had weak effects on the customers

       C．tricked the customers into shopping      D．caused the customers to lose interest

Which of the following is the key to the success in product sales?

       A．The way to promote goods．               B．The discovery of a genius．

       C．The team to produce a good product．   D．The brand name used by successful producers．

Which of the following would be the best title for this text?

       A．Choice of Good Products                     B．Disadvantages of Products

       C．Effect of Packaging on Shopping         D．Brand Names and Shopping Tricks