1 . Amazing Benefits of Listening to Music
If you love listening to music, you’re in good mood. Recent research shows that listening to music improves our mental and physical health.
Music lowers stress (压力).
Music brings happiness.
More than 350 million people are not happy around the world. Music can make people happy, depending on the type of music.
Music can lead people to eat fewer calories and enjoy their meals better. If you’re looking for ways to reduce your weight, try listening to soft music next time you sit down for a meal.
Music raises school performance.
Taking music lessons predicts higher school performance in young children. In one study, children who took singing lessons had learned better than children who took other lessons unrelated to music.
A.Music helps you eat less |
B.Popular music lifts people up |
C.Music gives you hope and confidence |
D.Listening to music reduces the stress in your body |
E.Here are some amazing benefits of listening to music |
F.If you want to help your children get good grades in their studies |
G.Musical training can help raise our IQs and even keep us sharp in young age |
2 . Can you imagine a civilization without music? Impossible, I would say. In addition, history shows that every culture on this planet has used music all the way.
They say that music is good for the soul, but what about the heart?
Patients suffering from pain have found relief from listening to music. Classical music seems to be the best choice and Mozart and Bach are the most suitable. But heavy metal and other techno sounds can actually excite patients and cause irregular heartbeats, so they are not recommended.
Music may be useful in controlling overweight.Studies show that simply playing soft and relaxing music while eating can have a controlling effect on how full you feel.
There was a lot of publicity about the “Mozart Effect” which showed that a group of college students did better at math while they were listening to some classical music.
A.Let us see how music affects us. |
B.The result is that you will eat less. |
C.Some students find that music can aid concentration, while others need silence. |
D.There are lots of experiments which are more or less impressive on the benefits of music when treating illness. |
E.Heavy metal music have no effect on easing pain. |
F.Let us look at the actual health benefits now. |
G.Music can help with pain relief. |
3 . It’s happened to all of us: a song comes on the radio, and we are immediately transported back to a time in our past.
There are a few things that connect tunes with our memories. Music is often a necessary element of many important life events, and it is also very effective in arresting our attention.
We often become familiar with a piece of music because we hear it as background music. The more familiar a piece of music is, the more effective it is in bringing back memories.
Tiffany Jenkins, writing for a culture column, has a different opinion:
It’s clear that our memories and music are closely linked — to the point that music is being used to help Alzheimer’s disease sufferers access memories that they thought they had lost.
A.Familiarity is important. |
B.Music itself is easy to remember. |
C.But what makes music so effective in doing this? |
D.Our musical preference usually forms during our teens. |
E.This applies to music more than other cultural products. |
F.Pop music especially can be connected with an important memory. |
G.Music and these life events are likely to be linked together in our memories. |
4 . How similar are language and music?
Language is part of our daily lives, no matter where we live in the world.
Both language and music have a writing system.
Both language and music have their own systems of notation. Language uses alphabets to represent sounds and create meaning.
Listening to the language someone speaks can provide valuable clues about their geographical origin. In the same way, we know that styles of music are different around the world, giving us the opportunity to explore many different cultures through their music and providing us with music for every situation.
Both share emotion.
A.Both are expressive. |
B.Both vary with culture. |
C.How do you know that I am annoyed? |
D.Similarly, music is part of many people’s lives. |
E.Equally, music uses notes to represent pitches and rhythms. |
F.We use language to express our thoughts. |
G.In contrast, you probably also listen to sad music when you are feeling down. |
5 . Adele’s new album, “30”, is finally available. Last month, hundreds of millions of us streamed its first single, “Easy On Me”. This song arouses feelings not easily put into words, but we can probably agree it is a sad song.
Let’s start with a biological theory. When we experience real-life loss, or empathize (产生共鸣) with another’s pain, certain hormones are released within us.
We can also think at the spiritual level. Adele’s songs allow us to view the pleasure in terms of the meaning she helps us make. Adele takes hard life experiences and makes sense of them. This is what sad art does.
Ultimately, we listen to Adele’s songs when we want to recall, reflect, or belong. They let us feel her sadness, share our suffering, and connect with others. To all of us, Adele’s songs say:
A.These help us to deal with loss and pain. |
B.You are not alone in your pain. |
C.Life is meaningless without sad music. |
D.This may make us better prepared for when real loss strikes. |
E.It takes the pain and suffering of the world and gives it meaning. |
F.Few people are aware sad music makes us feel good. |
G.Psychologically, a key reason we enjoy sad songs is that they profoundly move us. |
6 . Music is present in any part of the world, and it is appreciated and felt everywhere. Without its presence, life could be boring. Studies show that music is good for your body and mind.
Music can increase pain management. Listening to music can help increase your pain tolerance (耐痛性).
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●Music can reduce anxiety and depression
●Music can improve self-expression and communication. Self-expression and communication are an important part of the human experience, especially when it comes to basic emotional and mental health needs.
A.Music can improve heart health. |
B.Music can increase your heartbeat rate. |
C.Here are some benefits of music treatment. |
D.They are two common pains in your daily life. |
E.It has been proved to be helpful for anxious and depressed people. |
F.Listening to music can also help decrease the strength of your pains. |
G.For kids weak in both areas, music treatment can help develop their relative skills. |
7 . How similar are language and music?
Language is part of our daily lives, no matter where we live in the world.
Both language and music have a writing system.
In English we record language using the alphabet, which is a collection of letters. Similarly, we use notes (音符) to keep a record of music. Musicians read notes and create meaning in the form of music.
You can make a good guess at where someone is from by listening to the language he uses. In the same way, we know that styles of music are different around the world, giving us the opportunity to explore many different cultures through their music and providing us with music for every situation.
Both share emotion.
A.Both are expressive. |
B.Both vary with culture. |
C.How do you know that I am angry? |
D.We use language to express our thoughts. |
E.Similarly, music is part of many people’s lives. |
F.So just as you read English, you can read music. |
G.In contrast, you probably also listen to sad music when you are feeling down. |
8 . Music influences your emotions. In turn, your emotions influence your behavior. One of these is your food intake.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas studied how music influences people when they eat in a restaurant. For the study, they used four types of music: jazz, classical, rock, and hip-hop. Their results showed that people had more appetite when they listened to jazz music while they ate.
However, another study published in Psychological Reports suggests it isn’t only increased appetite that causes people to eat more.
Besides, the study conducted by the Journal of the Academy suggests that the volume of music can also have an effect on how you eat. More specifically, the study states that, with low-volume music, you eat better because you make healthier choices. On the other hand, the study claims that music at high volume increases stimulation and stress.
For this reason, restaurants should consider the fact when thinking about the optimization of their products and services.
A.Does music influence how you eat? |
B.Being in a rush to eat also plays a part. |
C.Does your emotion boost your appetite? |
D.However, they had less appetite when listening to hip-hop. |
E.In fact, many catering establishments have already taken action. |
F.This could prove to be quite an interesting concept for restaurants. |
G.This means you’re more likely to order comfort food or other unhealthy options. |
9 . Music has long been considered to be an enjoyable pastime for many people.
Many people enjoy relaxing music in the evening prior to going to bed.
When it comes to heart health,there is speculation (推测) that it's not the style of music, but rather the tempo that makes it so good for your heart health.In one European study,participants listened to music as the researchers monitored their heart rates and blood pressure.
A.This feeling can also result in many other health problems. |
B.Some experts say that music can be harmful if it is too loud. |
C.This idea is a little off-the-wall but still has scientific backing. |
D.They say it can play a big role in calming the brain enough to sleep. |
E.The implications of music on overall well-being are really impressive. |
F.It is also highly popular due to the individualized effects on stress and anxiety. |
G.Interestingly,the more cheerful the music was,the faster their heart rates were. |
10 . Should you listen to music when you work? Some will say they love it, claiming that it improves their performance; others will say they cannot work effectively with music playing in the background.
In a recent study, we brought participants into our lab with a variety of tasks. They included an easy task — searching through word lists and crossing out words containing the letter “a” and a more difficult task — memorizing word pairs and recalling the partner to each word. Some participants completed all of the tasks in silence, whereas others completed the tasks with instrumental music that was either loud or soft, and either simple or complex, the latter meaning music with more instrumental tracks.
We found that participants who listened to simple music or no music performed about the same on the easy task.
A.What should we make of these findings? |
B.Several key findings emerged from our study. |
C.However, difficult tasks already demand a lot of our mental resources. |
D.Our research has found that the effects of work may depend on our personalities. |
E.We want to develop a more comprehensive framework that could be applied broader. |
F.However, participants who listened to complex music performed best on the easy task. |
G.Interestingly enough, our research has found that both of these perspectives can be true. |