Question

【题目】A research study has looked into what happens inside your brain while you read and listen to music. You know that thrill(兴 奋 )you get when listening to your favorite music?That exciting feeling when you hear your favorite songs?According to a recent study，it seems the same thing can happen while you are reading，but not with every kind of text. This opens up interesting questions around how music，reading and emotions are connected in the brain.

The study

“ We decided we would do a comparison between four or five different kinds of texts to see how the brain reacted，”explains Adam Zeman，a scientist. “ The participants (参 与 者 )lay in an MRI scanner reading the texts，and then we compared brain activity for those five texts.”The texts ranged (涉 及 )from deadly boring ones to highly exciting ones，including the Highway Code，parts from novels，and poems.

So what happened in the participants brains while they were reading?

Emotional reaction

As the researchers observed，participants found some texts more emotional than others. When reading these emotional texts，there was higher activity in brain areas related to pleasure and reward—the same areas related to the thrill we get when we listen to music. As Zeman says，“ it perfectly shows that the emotional reaction to literature(文 学 )and to music has quite a bit in common. So it doesn't seem to matter whether you are listening or reading if you get a thrill. That was one quite strong finding.”

Introspection(内 省 )

There were more interesting findings. Reading poetry is often considered an activity that requires us to use the brain，but did the study find any truth of this?When the participants were reading poems，the team found there was more activity in a particular group of brain areas called the Default Network. “ These areas seem to be related to things we do with our minds when we are resting，like thinking about what's happened to us recently，thinking about what's going to happen in the near future，about other people，and that network seems to be more strongly related to poetry than with other texts，”explains Zeman. This connection between poetry and introspection could be the subject of further research.

Conclusions

The study shows that the different texts activate different areas of our brains when we read. Zeman says，“ the study did support what we thought:reaction to literature was going to be a bit like the one to music in terms of emotion. We felt that we ended up with a great deal of unanswered questions which we hope somebody will continue to ask.”

【1】What did the research try to find out?

A. How music helps us read different kinds of texts.

B. What kind of texts most people like while listening to music.

C. Why reading different texts causes different reactions in emotion.

D. Whether reading can cause similar emotional reaction like music does.

【2】What did the participants do in the study?

A. They listened to music. B. They read different texts.

C. They answered many questions. D. They compared brain activities.

【3】What can we learn from the study?

A. The emotional texts work better for the research.

B. Poetry reading can activate the Default Network.

C. Music helps to bring pleasure and reward.

D. People think about the past when resting.

Answer 1

【答案】

【1】D

【2】B

【3】B

【解析】

本文主要讲述关于你在阅读和听音乐时脑内发生的事情的一项研究调查。你知道听到你最喜欢的音乐时你会得到的兴奋的感觉，同样读书也会发生同样的事情。音乐，阅读和情感如何在大脑中相互联系，做了实验，最后得出结论：当我们阅读时，不同类型的文章会激活我们大脑的不同区域。泽曼说，“这项研究确实支持了我们的想法：对文学的反应有点像音乐对情感的反应。我们觉得，我们最终得到了许多悬而未决的，我们希望有人会继续问的问题。”

【1】题意：这项研究试图找出什么？A. How music helps us read different kinds of texts. 音乐如何帮助我们阅读不同体裁的文章；B. What kind of texts most people like while listening to music. 听音乐时大多数人喜欢什么样的文章；C. Why reading different texts causes different reactions in emotion. 为什么阅读不同的文章会引起情感上的不同反应。D. Whether reading can cause similar emotional reaction like music does. 阅读是否会引起类似音乐的情绪反应。根据第一段第一句A research study has looked into what happens inside your brain while you read and listen to music.（一项调查研究调查了你在阅读和听音乐时大脑内部发生的事情。）可知研究的目的是“阅读是否会引起类似音乐的情绪反应。”选D。

【2】题意：参与者在研究中做了什么？A. They listened to music. 他们听音乐；B. They read different texts. 他们读不同的文章；C. They answered many questions. 他们回答了许多问题；

D. They compared brain activities. 他们比较了大脑活动。根据实验the study的第一句We decided we would do a comparison between four or five different kinds of texts to see how

the brain reacted可知参与者读不同的文章；选B。

【3】题意：我们可以从这项研究中了解到什么？A. The emotional texts work better for the research. 情感文本对研究更有效；B. Poetry reading can activate the Default Network. 诗歌朗读可以激活默认网络；C. Music helps to bring pleasure and reward. 音乐有助于带来快乐和回报；D. People think about the past when resting. 人们在休息的时候思考过去。根据第3句When the participants were reading poems，the team found there was more activity in a particular group of brain areas called the Default Network.（与者阅读诗歌时，研究小组发现在特定的大脑区域称为默认网络中有更多的活动。）可知选B。