Question

Our voice gives away a lot of information about ourselves. It can tell us our gender(性別)and age. And now, scientists say that it can also tell us our height.

Scientists at Washington University, Indiana University and University of California found that listeners could accurately tell the height of speakers, just by their voices. And the key to this mystery is a sound known as the subglottal resonance（聲門下共振）. It deepens with height and helps us build a mental picture of a person.

“The best way to think about subglottal resonances is to imagine blowing into a glass bottle with water. The less water in the bottle, the lower sound,” said John Morton, a scientist at Washington University. And it’s the same for humans. The frequency of the subglottal resonance depends on the height. The taller we are, the deeper the resonance frequency is.

In order to find out whether people could identify the resonance, scientists did experiments. A number of same-sex pairs of different heights were told to read the same sentence aloud. It was played back to listeners who had to choose which one of the pairs was taller. Then, other listeners had to rank the speakers from the shortest to the tallest. The listeners were able to identify the tall people 62.17% of time, much higher than a lucky guess.

Why not try the experiment yourself? Find out if your tall friends have deeper voices.

1. The scientists in some American universities found that people’s voices ________.

A. change more quickly as they get older

B. can tell the height of the speaker

C. sound different when they have water in their mouth

D. can tell the speaker’s gender, age and weight

2. The underlined word deepens might mean ________ in Chinese.

A.變得刺耳 B. 變得高亢 C.變得低沉 D. 變得甜美

3. According to the study, taller people usually have a ________ voice.

A. deeper B. louder C. lower D. higher

4. Which of the following is TRUE?

A. Our voice is made up of the subglottal resonance.

B. The people tested in the experiments were of different-sex pairs.

C. A person’s voice is greatly different even when reading the same sentence.

D. Listeners’ ability to identify taller speaker is much higher than a lucky guess.

5. The best title of the passage might be ________.

A. How to Be Taller

B. Our Voice Tells Our Height

C. An Experience about Voice

D. Something about Subglottal Resonance

Answer 1