1. What are the speakers talking about?
| A．Buying a mobile phone. | B．Winning a prize. | C．Joining a singing contest. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Confident. | C．Indifferent. |
| A．Schoolmates. | B．Colleagues. | C．Roommates. |
2 . While the arts can’t stop the COVID-19 virus or the social unrest we see in the world today, they can give us insight into the choices we make when moving through crises and chaos. The arts invite everyone to think in new ways.
We often experience works of art as something that’s pleasing to our senses without a full understanding of the creative effort. Great art often shows us contradictions and crises, and we can learn a great deal from their resolutions. Through our understanding of art, we can gain a deeper understanding of how we might overcome our own challenges. In understanding extremes of contrast, we can see the beauty in art with themes that are not simply pleasing for their magnificent features or qualities.
Beethoven offers a wonderful example of moving artfully through crises and chaos. He composed his Symphony No.9 as his hearing loss became more and more pronounced. The opening of the symphony seems to come out of nowhere, from near silence in the opening to a full expression of what many consider to be the joy of freedom and universal brotherhood with Schiller’s Ode to joy (欢乐颂). Beethoven appears to have created a work of art that not only freed him from his personal struggles, but one that also speaks to the joy of living together in peace and harmony.
Have a dialogue between the two opposing parts and you will find that they always start out fighting each other until we come to an appreciation of difference—a oneness of the two opposing forces. The arts offer many lessons that can help us gain the knowledge we need to move more confidently in today’s competitive and uncertain environment. An openness to arts-based solutions will give you more control over your future.
1. What value does art have beyond pleasing people’s senses?| A．It brings people inner peace. | B．It contributes to problem-solving. |
| C．It reduces the possibility of crises. | D．It deepens understanding of challenges. |
| A．It celebrates freedom and unity. | B．It aims to show crises and chaos. |
| C．It opens with Schiller’s Ode to Joy. | D．It is unfinished due to his hearing loss. |
| A．Leaving things as they are. | B．Making a choice between them. |
| C．Separating them from each other. | D．Engaging them in a conversation. |
| A．How COVID-19 changes art | B．Moving artfully through crises |
| C．Essentials of Symphony No.9 | D．How to appreciate arts in new ways |
3 . Hit songs are big business, so there is an incentive for composers to get those ingredients that might increase their chances of success. But songs are complex mixtures of features. How to analyse them is made more difficult by the fact that what is popular changes over time. But Natalia Komarova, a mathematician at the University of California, Irvine, thinks she has cracked the problem. Her computer analysis suggests that the songs currently preferred by consumers are danceable, party-like numbers. Unfortunately, those actually writing songs prefer something else.
She and her colleagues collected information on music released in Britain between 1985 and 2015. They looked in music “metadata (元数据)’’ that are used by music lovers and are often tapped into by academics. Metadata are information about the nature of a song that can give listeners an idea of what that song is like before they hear it. Dr. Komarova and her team were presented with more than 500,000 songs to detect numerous musical features. The team fed all of this information into a computer and compared the features of songs that had made it into the charts (排行榜) with those of songs that had not.
Overall, the team’s results suggested that chart successes were happier and brighter than the average songs released during the same year. Chart toppers were also more likely than average songs to have been performed by women.
Dr. Komarova used these results to train her computer to try to predict whether a randomly presented song was likely to have been a hit in a given year. The machine correctly predicted success 75% of the time, compared with that from the music database.
Content isn’t everything. As might be expected, circumstances, particularly any fame already attached to a recording artist or artists, had an effect too. But not a huge one. That suggests that musical fame is actually attached to talent, rather than to advertising. And this is a lesson for an industry that some believe is not connected enough to talent.
1. Why is it difficult to tell what makes good music?| A．What people think is popular changes with the time. |
| B．What some people think popular isn’t for other people. |
| C．No one cares about what makes popular music. |
| D．It’s difficult to know the features of popular music. |
| A．The content of good music can be typed into computers. |
| B．Good music has the quality to make people think about life. |
| C．Happier and brighter songs are more likely to make the charts. |
| D．Analysis can decide in advance whether a song will be popular. |
| A．Expression. | B．Motivation. |
| C．Exhibition. | D．Division. |
| A．A famous singer will make any music he/she sings popular. |
| B．Good music depends on whether the singer is widely advertised. |
| C．A good female singer can make an average song popular. |
| D．Talent is more important than fame to make a song popular. |
4 . At first sight, Alma Deutscher, a twelve-year-old girl from England appears to be like any other typical pre-teen. She loves to skip rope, read and play with her younger sister. But this modest youngster, who composed her first musical work at age six, first short opera at age seven, and first full-length opera based on Cinderella at age ten, is anything but average. Though her parents downplay her extraordinary talent, young Alma is being described as “little Mozart” by the music world
Alma's operatic take on the classic fairy tale, which she began writing at age eight, has a slight twist. Her Cinderella is a musician who meets her Prince Charming through a song. “In my Cinderella, she sings the beginning of a ballad — but at midnight she flees. Eventually, the prince finds her after asking all the maidens of the land to sing the end of the ballad.”
The opera was first performed in Vienna, Australia on December 29, 2016, where the then eleven-year-old skillfully switched between the piano and the violin and receives enthusiastic reviews. The young genius has since performed two new piano works, once in Australia and the other in China.
While this may appear to be a lot for someone so young, Alma is not worried. She says, “of course I have to work hard. But all children have to work hard for exams, and at least when I work hard, I work hard for something incredibly exciting, like seeing my whole opera put on stage.”
Alma's musical talent first came to light before she could even talk. Her parents recall that as an 18-month-old toddler, she was able to hum a pitch perfect version of the children’s rhyme
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.However, Alma’s abilities only gained international attention in 2012, after a family friend posted a video online comparing her to Mozart. The family was suddenly swamped with media requested and Alma became an overnight star, dubbed “little Mozart”. This nickname makes her parents unhappy because they believe it puts added pressure on the young girl. They would instead prefer her to be called “a composer and musician”.
Alma does not want to be compared to the famous artist either, saying, “There was only one Mozart, and I prefer to be little Alma.” Regardless of what she calls herself, the twelve-year-old is changing the world of music forever!
1. What do we know about Alma Deutscher?| A．She has shown great musical talent from a young age. |
| B．She comes from a famous musical family. |
| C．She regularly performs the classical music of Mozart. |
| D．She has adapted some famous works of classical music. |
| A．By performing on television |
| B．Through an online video |
| C．By putting on an opera |
| D．Through her parents’ promotion |
| A．She is still unsatisfied with her performance. |
| B．She is modest about her musical achievements |
| C．She is uncomfortable with so much pressure. |
| D．She is proud to have become a professional musician. |
| A．They are very well-educated people. |
| B．They have made a good life plan for Alma. |
| C．They have pushed Alma to take up music. |
| D．They are protective of their daughter. |
