Tons of people enjoy listening to different types of music while they paint, write, or draw. Many believe that music helps get the creative juices flowing, but an international new study is challenging that view by putting volunteers through a series of tests.

The study was performed as a joint partnership between psychologists at three universities in Europe. The results suggest that any task that relies on verbal(与文字有关的) creativity was impaired(削弱) when listening to any type of music.

Subjects(受试者) in the project all spoke English as their first language, and had no problem in their sight or hearing.

The tasks were simple word games. For example, subjects were given three words, such as dress, shine, and flower. Then, they were asked to find a single word which could be connected with all three to form a common phrase or word. The single word, in this case, would be “sun” (sundress, sunflower, etc).

Subjects completed the tasks in either a quiet room, or while they were played background music with foreign lyrics(歌词), English lyrics, and instrumental music with no lyrics at all.

The research team also tested the library background noises, but found that such noises had no great difference in subjects’ creativity. The study’s authors believe that was the case because library noise is a “steady state” environment which is not as disruptive(扰乱的). Music with or without lyrics is characterized by changes in pitch or tone.

It’s worth mentioning that even familiar music with well known lyrics impaired subjects’ creativity, even when subjects declared that they worked or studied with music on regularly and the music improved their overall mood.

So next time you sit down for a study session with those lo-fi beats, you may be giving your brain something else to focus on rather than your work.

1.What does “that view” in Paragraph 1 refer to?

A.Listening to music while working is so common.

B.People enjoy listening to different types of music.

C.Listening to music impairs creativity.

D.Music helps improve our creativity.

2.According to the word game in Paragraph 4, if volunteers are given three words “foot, base, basket”, what is the single word?

A.Case. B.Line. C.Print. D.Ball.

3.Which of the following had no great difference in performance of the verbal tasks?

A.Familiar music with well known lyrics.

B.The quiet and library noise conditions.

C.Background music with foreign lyrics.

D.Instrumental music with no lyrics.

4.According to the passage, which of the following is TRUE?

A.Music cannot disrupt the verbal working memory of the disabled.

B.Different kinds of music impair different parts of our brains.

C.You may do your best work without listening to music.

D.Library noises are characterized by changes in pitch or tone.

If you are in Shanghai and want to throw away a cup of milk tea, be careful. You need to follow these steps: first, pour out any leftover(残留物)into a wet waste bin; second, put the paper wrapper(包装材料)into a recyclable waste bin; third, throw the single-use cup into a dry waste bin.

Sound difficult? You'll have to get used to it. From July lst, people in Shanghai are required to sort(分类)their garbage according to strict rules.

Why should we sort our garbage? The answer lies in the increasing amount of waste we are producing. Chinese cities produce over 200 million tons of waste each year, according to China Economic Net. Most of this waste is buried in landfills, which may pollute the water and soil. Moreover, we are running out of space for new landfills.

In fact, more than half of our waste can be recycled. Recyclable garbage can be made into new materials. For example, wet garbage can be used to make gas, heat and many other kinds of useful things. But in order to recycle garbage efficiently(有效地), we need to sort our garbage.

Can't garbage-processing companies do the sorting job? They can. But that requires a lot of work and costs lots of money. Things will become much easier if each of us can sort our own garbage. Besides, the difficult task of sorting might encourage people to produce less waste. Do you still want to buy that milk tea?

1.If you want to throw some paper, which of the following dustbins should you throw in?

A.a recyclable waste bin B.apoisonous waste bin

C.a dry waste bin. D.a wet waste bin

2.What does the underlined word "landfills" mean in Chinese?

A.沙漠 B.森林地区 C.郊区 D.垃圾填埋

3.What can be used to make gas and heat?

A.wet garbage. B.dry garbage.

C.recyclable garbage. D.harmful garbage.

4.What's the best title for the text?

A.The reasons for sorting garbage B.Wonderful ways of sorting garbage

C.An introduction of sorting garbage D.An environmental city-Shanghai

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