Directions: For each numbered blank in the following passage, there are four choices marked A, B, C and D. Choose the best one and mark your answer on ANSWER SHEET with a single line through the center.
Music produces profound and lasting changes in the brain. Schools should add music classes, not cut them. Nearly 20 years ago, a small study advanced the 【A1】______ that listening to Mozart’s Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major could boost mental functioning. It was not long 【A2】______ trademarked “Mozart effect” products began to appeal to anxious parents aiming to put toddlers 【A3】______ the fast track to prestigious universities like Harvard and Yale. Georgia’s governor even 【A4】______ giving every newborn there a classical CD or cassette.
The 【A5】______ for Mozart therapy turned out to be weak, perhaps nonexistent, although the 【A6】______ study never claimed anything more than a temporary and limited effect. In recent years, 【A7】______, scientists have examined the benefits of a concerted 【A8】______ to study and practice music, as 【A9】______ to playing a Mozart CD or a computer-based “brain fitness” game 【A10】______ in a while.
Advanced monitoring 【A11】______ have enabled scientists to see what happens【A12】______ your head when you listen to your mother and actually practice the violin for an hour every afternoon. And they have found that music 【A13】______ can produce profound and lasting changes that 【A14】______ the general ability to learn. These results should【A15】______ public officials that music classes are not a mere decoration, ripe for discarding in the budget crises that constantly【A16】______ public schools.
Studies have shown that 【A17】______ instrument training from an early age can help the brain to【A18】______ sounds better, making it easier to stay focused when absorbing other subjects, from literature to mathematics. The musically adept are better able to 【A19】______ on a biology lesson despite the noise in the classroom 【A20】______, a few years later, to finish a call with a client when a colleague in the next office starts screaming a subordinate. They can attend to several things at once in the mental scratch pad called working memory, an essential skill in this era of multitasking