Question

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

 

Answer 1

【答案】

1.C

2.D

3.A

4.B

【解析】

試題分析：人們認(rèn)為孩子小的時(shí)候接受音樂(lè)教育可以更聰明。但事實(shí)是這樣嗎？哈佛大學(xué)最近的一項(xiàng)研究表示，沒(méi)有證據(jù)支持接受了音樂(lè)教育的孩子比沒(méi)有接受音樂(lè)教育的孩子表得更好。

1.主旨大意題。文章講了哈佛大學(xué)做的一項(xiàng)研究 ，推翻了人們認(rèn)為的孩子小時(shí)候?qū)W習(xí)音樂(lè)會(huì)更聰明的結(jié)論。故選C。

2.細(xì)節(jié)理解題。由“ But he says the training is still important for cultural reasons. In his words, "We teach music because music is important for us."”可知他認(rèn)為 音樂(lè)對(duì)于文化原因還是很重要的。故選D。

3.細(xì)節(jié)理解題。由“Samuel Mehr says researchers have carried out many studies in an effort to learn whether musical training can make children smarter.”可知 Samuel Mehr組織了不止一項(xiàng)研究去論證音樂(lè)對(duì)孩子早期智力開(kāi)發(fā)的真實(shí)作用。故選A。

4.主旨大意題。 全文講了哈佛大學(xué)教授做的一項(xiàng)關(guān)于音樂(lè)開(kāi)發(fā)小孩智力真假與否的研究，因此應(yīng)該出自教育有關(guān)的欄目。health健康；education教育；culture文化；economy經(jīng)濟(jì)。故選B。

考點(diǎn)： 科普類閱讀。