Question

What did your school smell like? Was it noisy or peaceful? It might not seem important, but a growing body of research suggests that smells and sounds can have an impact on learning, performance and creativity．

Bridget Shield has been conducting studies and advising people on the effects of all sorts of noises, such as traffic and sirens, as well as noise made by the children themselves． "Everything points to a harmful impact of the noise on children’s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,” says Shield．

Shield says the sound of “babble” －the chatter of other children, is particularly distracting in the classroom．。People are very distracted by speech-particularly if it is understandable, but you’re not involved in it．” This phenomenon is also known as the irrelevant speech effect, she says, adding that “it’s a very common finding in open-plan offices as well．’’

In a series of studies published last year, Ravi Mehta found that people were more creative when the background noises were played at a medium level than when volume was low． Loud background noise, however, damaged their creativity． Ravi Mehta suggests there maybe some benefit to playing music or other sounds in an art class or other situations where creativity is the key．

Many teachers all over the world already play music to students in class． Many are inspired by the belief that hearing music can boost IQ in their tasks, the so-called Mozart effect． While the evidence actually suggests it’s a guess to say classical music boosts brainpower, researchers do think pleasant sounds before a task can sometimes lift your mood and help you perform well, says Ravi Mehta," If you like the music or you like the sound-even listening to a Stephen King novel-then you did better． It didn’t matter about the music,“ he says．

However, it’s worth considering that music is not always helpful while you’re trying to work． Trying to perform a task which involves serial recall - for instance, doing mental mathematics-will be distracted by sounds with audio variation, says Ravi Mehta． Songs with lyrics, on the other hand, are more likely to interfere（干擾）with tasks that involve languages-such as reading comprehension．

This isn’t the only sense being related to affecting learning．

1.The second paragraph implies that _________.

A．general noise also has a harmful effect．

B．students are sensitive to noise．

C．some children need special sounds to do tasks．

D．children aren't affected by their own noise．

2.The irrelevant speech effect refers to the fact that _________.

A．you don’t understand what others are talking

B．you are interrupted by the chatting of others

C．you are unwilling to chat with other people

D．you find what others are talking irrelevant to you

3.According to the text, Ravi Mehta believes that __________.

A．music matters when you want to do better．

B．music will help you do mental arithmetic．

C．a(chǎn)ny music can be beneficial as long as you like it．

D．songs with lyrics will improve your reading comprehension．

4.What might be discussed in the following paragraph?

A．Whether music is helpful all the time．

B．What sound can promote a person’s creativity．

C．When smell can improve students’ behavior．

D．How smell affects children’s performance．

Answer 1

1.A

2.B

3.C

4.D

【解析】

試題分析: 一些學(xué)校在教室里給學(xué)生播放音樂(lè)，并且使教室充滿令人宜人的味道、他們這樣做的目的是看看這樣是否能提高學(xué)生的考試成績(jī)。在本文中作者通過(guò)對(duì)幾個(gè)實(shí)驗(yàn)的介紹表明適當(dāng)?shù)囊魳?lè)和使人愉悅的味道的確會(huì)起到積極的作用。

1.A細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第二段 “"Everything points to a harmful impact of the noise on children’s performance, in numeracy, in literacy, and in spelling,””噪音對(duì)孩子的計(jì)算能力，識(shí)字能力以及拼寫(xiě)能力方面都有壞的影響，可知噪音有壞的影響。故選A。

2.B細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù)第三段最后兩行的意思“人們特別容易因?yàn)樗�人講話而分神——尤其是你能夠聽(tīng)懂講話內(nèi)容，但是卻沒(méi)有參與其中的時(shí)候。”她說(shuō)，這種現(xiàn)象也稱為無(wú)關(guān)言語(yǔ)效應(yīng)，”可知，無(wú)關(guān)言語(yǔ)效應(yīng)指的是我們被別人的談話而打斷，從而注意力不集中。故選B。

3.C細(xì)節(jié)理解題。根據(jù) “If you like the music or you like the sound-even listening to a Stephen King novel-then you did better． It didn’t matter about the music” 如果你喜歡所播放的音樂(lè)或聲音——甚至是聽(tīng)史蒂芬·金的小說(shuō)——那么你也會(huì)做得更好。是否是音樂(lè)并不重要。可知，不選C。

4.D推理判斷題。根據(jù)第一段“氣味和聲音會(huì)對(duì)學(xué)習(xí)、表現(xiàn)和創(chuàng)造力產(chǎn)生影響”再結(jié)合本文分析了聽(tīng)覺(jué)對(duì)學(xué)習(xí)能力的影響，所以接下來(lái)科學(xué)家會(huì)寫(xiě)味覺(jué)對(duì)人們學(xué)習(xí)能力的影響是好還是壞。故選D。

考點(diǎn)：社會(huì)科學(xué)類短文