2 . Muzak

The next time you go into a bank, a store, or a supermarket, stop and listen. What do you hear?     1    . It's similar to the music you listen to, but it's not exactly the same. That's because this music was especially designed to relax you, or to give you extra energy. Sometimes you don't even realize the music is playing, but you react to the music anyway.

Quiet background music used to be called "elevator (电梯) music" because we often heard it in elevators. But lately we hear it in more and more places, and it has a new name "Muzak". About one-third of the people in America listen to "Muzak" every day. The music plays for 15 minutes at a time, with short pauses in between. It is always more lively between ten and eleven in the morning, and between three and four in the afternoon, when people are more tired.     2    .

If you listen to Muzak carefully, you will probably recognize the names of many of the songs. Some musicians or songwriters don't want their songs to be used as Muzak, but others are happy when their songs are chosen. Why?     3    .

Music is often played in public places because it is designed to make people feel less lonely when they are in an airport or a hotel. It has been proven that Muzak doeswhat it is designed to do. Tired office workers suddenly have more energy when they hear the pleasant sound of Muzak in the background.     4    . Supermarket shoppers buy 38 percent more groceries.

    5    . They say it's boring to hear the same songs all the time. But other people enjoy hearing Muzak in public places. They say it helps them relax and feel calm. One way or another, Muzak affects everyone. Some farmers even say their cows give more milk when they hear Muzak!

A．Some people don't like Muzak.

B．The music gives them extra energy.

C．Music is playing in the background.

D．Factory workers produce 13 percent more.

E．Muzak tends to help people understand music better.

F．They get as much as $4 million a year if their songs are used.

G．Muzak is played in most of the big supermarkets in the world.

3 . When students and parents are asked to rate subjects according to their importance，the arts are unavoidably at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is viewed as entertainment, but certainly not an education priority（优先）. This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is beneficial and important for all students

Music tells us who we are. Because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it reflects their thinking and values, as well as the social environment it came from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity as a society.

Music provides a kind of perception(视角) that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts explore the emotive（情感的）meaning of the same phenomenon. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.

The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other. They are the language of civilization through which we express our fears, our curiosities our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children access to an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.

So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.

1. According to paragraph 1, students ________.

A．regard music as a way of entertainment

B．disagree with their parents on education

C．view music as an overlooked subject

D．prefer the arts to science

2. In Paragraph 2, the author uses jazz as an example to ________.

A．compare it with rock music

B．show music identifies a society

C．introduce American musical traditions

D．prove music influences people’s lifestyles

3. According to the passage, the arts and science ________.

A．approach the world from different angles

B．explore different phenomena of the world

C．express people’s feeling in different ways

D．explain what it means to be human differently

4. What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Music education deserves more attention.

B．Music should be of top education priority.

C．Music is an effective communication tool.

D．Music education makes students more imaginative.