单选题
The popular idea that classical music can improve your maths is falling from favor. New experiments have failed to support the widely publicized finding that Mozart" s music promotes mathematical thinking. Researchers reported six years ago that listening to Mozart brings about short-temporal reasoning , the type of thinking used in maths. Gordon Shaw of the University of California at Irvine and Frances Rauscher of the University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh had asked students to perform spatial tasks such as imagining how a piece of paper would look if it were folded and cut in a certain pattern. Some of the students then listened to a Mozart sonata and took the test again. The performance of the Mozart group improved, Shaw found. He reasoned that listening to Mozart increases the number of connections between neurons. But Kenneth Steele of Appalachian State University in North Carolina learnt that other studies failed to find this effect. He decided to repeat one of Shaw" s experiments to see for himself. Steele divided 125 students into three groups and tested their abilities to work out how paper would look if cut and folded. One group listened to Mozart, another listened to a piece by Philip Glass and the third did not listen to anything. Then the students took the test again. No group showed any statistically significant improvement in their abilities. Steele concludes that the Mozart effect doesn" t exist. " It" s about as unproven and as unsupported as you can get," he says. Shaw, however, defends his study. One reason he gives is that people who perform poorly in the initial test get the greatest boost from Mozart, but Steele didn" t separate his students into groups based on ability. "We"re still at the stage where it needs to be examined," Shaw says. "I suspect that the more we understand the neurobiology, the more we" 11 be able to design tests that give a robust effect. "
单选题
It has been recently found out that______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析：第一段讲到对classical music can improve your maths这种思想的支持正在下降。新进行的实验不支持。Mozart’s music可以提高mathematical thinking这种广为流传的发现。由此可知选项B的说法正确。
单选题
Which of the following pairs, according to the widely publicized finding, is connected?
【正确答案】
C
【答案解析】解析：通过第一段中的classical music can improve your maths可知文中讲到的广为流传的一对联系是classical music与mathematical performance。
单选题
In Shaw" s test, the students would most probably______.
【正确答案】
B
【答案解析】解析：Shaw的实验要证明的就是：听莫扎特的音乐可以提到数学思维水平，故选项B正确。且在文中末尾，作者给了Shaw反驳的机会，可见，作者倾向于认同Shaw的实验结果。选项A和C文中未涉及。选项D，文章讲到的是connections between neurons而不是neurons的增加。
单选题
From Steele" s experiment we can say that______.
【答案解析】解析：最后一段第二句讲到shaw指出最初测验中表现很差的人get the greatest boost from Mozart，但是Steele并没有将学生按ability分组，由此可以推断他是对Steele的实验设计表示不满。选项C，Shaw确实暗自认为Steel对神经生物学理解不到位，但一来，ignorance一词过重，二来，Shaw只是暗讽而不是明着批判。