1 . Is there a friend of yours who always sings out of tune (曲调) but never realizes it? Don’t be so hard on them — they may have amusia — the inability to tell the difference in tunes.

Apart from singing out of tune, people with amusia may also find it hard to recognize music they’ve heard before without the help of song lyrics. Besides, people who suffer from Amusia can have difficulty in recognizing melodies and a total inability to tell between different musical sounds, according to Live Science. However, people with amusia can recognize common environmental sounds as well as the high and lows sounds in human voices, meaning that this inability can be specially related to music.

In many cases, people who have amusia are born with it, as 46 percent of these individuals’ family members were found to have similar conditions, according to a 2017 study. Brain imaging shows that their brains receive and respond to music pitch (音高) information, but it is not reaching conscious awareness, meaning that the mind can’t understand the information.

Scientists at the University of Otago in New Zealand also think that amusia is related to people’s special processing skills. They invited people with amusia, musicians and students from non-musical backgrounds to perform a task related to spacial imagination. They were asked to decide whether pairs of images are the same object moving around or mirror images.

The result showed that the amusia group made more mistakes than the other two groups. Amusia might be related to the way brain stores information about the high and low sounds in songs, according to the study.

Although those who aren’t confident about their singing skills often say they’re “tune-deaf”, people with amusia only make up about 1.5 percent of the population, as shown in the 2017 study. “Like dyslexics (诵读困难者) can learn how to read, those with amusia should be able to better their ability to recognize tunes if they start early enough,” Isabelle Peretz, a professor of psychology from the University of Montreal in Canada, told Live Science.

1. According to the article, what is the main difficulty faced by people with amusia?

A．Recognizing tunes.	B．Identifying human voices.
C．Understanding song lyrics.	D．Noticing common sounds in nature.

2. What did the 2017 study tell us about amusia?

A．Amusia is common among children.

B．Amusia is a result of brain damage.

C．Many individuals with amusia are born with it.

D．Those who are tune-deaf often suffer from amusia.

3. What did the study by scientists at the University of Otago show?

A．People with amusia have strong spa cial imagination skills.

B．People with amusia struggle to decide the shape of images.

C．Amusia may be affected by one’s level of music education.

D．Amusia may be related to how the brain stores sound information.

4. How can people with amusia improve their musical ability, according to Peretz?

A．Go for medical treatment.	B．Sing frequently with friends.
C．Learn how to read earlier in life.	D．Start to explore and learn music early.

2 . We are often told that there’s no _________ limit when it comes to pursuing our goals, but it’s truly _________ to see someone achieve them later in life-especially if they are 95 years old.

Angela Alvarez is a Cuban-born singer and songwriter who finally _________ her first album in 2021. Now, she has just won the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist.

Growing up surrounded by music, Alvarez once told her father she wanted to become a (an) _________ singer. However, life wasn’t easy for their family then and she had to _________ her dream of pursuing a career in entertainment for decades, but music was always there to keep her company and bring her _________.

With time, her kids had kids, and one of her grandchildren, Carlos Jose Alvarez, _________ found out that his grandma had _________ over 50 songs throughout her life, he knew that something had to be done. He asked her if she would be interested in going to a studio and _________ her songs. “And her answer was ‘Carlos, my dream is to __________ this life knowing that somehow my music would emerge and last.’ And that was the __________,” Carlos said in an interview.

Alvarez’s story __________ caught the attention of actor Andy Garcia, who decided to become the producer and narrator of Miss Angela, a documentary about this amazing woman. “Her story just blew me away. She __________ a generation, perhaps our generation of Cubans,” said the actor.

The dream reached new __________ as she became nominated (被提名) for a Latin Grammy. When she took to the stage to accept her award, she gave an inspiring speech, “To those who have not achieved their dream, I promise, with __________ and love you can achieve it, it’s never too late.”

1.

A．sex

B．age

C．identity

D．race

2.

A．exciting

B．understanding

C．inspiring

D．surprising

3.

A．released

B．searched

C．created

D．increased

4.

A．ambitious

B．unique

C．professional

D．temporary

5.

A．take up

B．get into

C．bring in

D．put aside

6.

A．comfort

B．concept

C．trouble

D．emotion

7.

A．intentionally

B．accidentally

C．actually

D．obviously

8.

A．hidden

B．cited

C．heard

D．written

9.

A．grasping

B．adapting

C．recording

D．polishing

10.

A．leave

B．continue

C．keep

D．bear

11.

A．conclusion

B．peak

C．ending

D．beginning

12.

A．still

B．never

C．ever

D．even

13.

A．defends

B．represents

C．makes

D．strengthens

14.

A．draft

B．insights

C．heights

D．aspect

15.

A．faith

B．trick

C．competence

D．qualification

3 . 阅读下面短文，在空白处填入1个适当的单词或括号内单词的正确形式。

You might have heard of Cantonese opera, but have you heard of Nanyin — Fujian’s traditional opera? Traditional Nanyin is performed by five people,     1    (comprise) of one singer and four instrumentalists. The musicians play the dongxiao, nanpa, erxian, and sanxian. In 2009, Nanyin     2    (add) to UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage List.

    3    (wander) the streets of Quanzhou, a historical port city, one will often hear slow, soft and pleasant melodies (曲调) coming from a newsstand on a street corner, a grocery store in a marketplace     4    a residential house with its door open.

That’s the sound of Nanyin,     5     ancient music style of Minnan, or southern Fujian Province,     6     can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. One of the country’s oldest music     7    (style), Nanyin (literally meaning “music of the south”) came into being and developed as the culture of central China spread to Quanzhou and integrated with local arts.     8     its melody was often associated with royal court music, it gradually changed to become part of local folk life, and was passed down from generation to generation. Nanyin became “the sounds of hometown and motherland” in the minds of many overseas Chinese who left Quanzhou.

It’s common for its fans     9    (collect) Nanyin albums, organize regional associations of Nanyin enthusiasts, hold salons (沙龙) and set up musical theaters. In Quanzhou alone, there are about 500 music associations devoted to Nanyin’s soft sounds, and more than a dozen festivals and competitions are held     10    (annual) both at home and abroad.