Question

When students and parents are asked to rate subjects according to their importance, the arts are unavoidably at the bottom of the list. Music is nice, people seem to say, but not important. Too often it is viewed as mere entertainment, but certainly not an education priority(优先). This view is shortsighted. In fact, music education is beneficial and important for all students.

Music tells us who we are because music is an expression of the beings who create it, it reflects their thinking and values as well as the social environment it comes from. Rock music represents a lifestyle just as surely as does a Schubert song. The jazz influence that George Gershwin and other musicians introduced into their music is obviously American because it came from American musical traditions. Music expresses our character and values. It gives us identity as a society.

Music provides a kind of perception (感知) that cannot be acquired any other way. Science can explain how the sun rises and sets. The arts explore the emotive (情感的) meaning of the same phenomenon. We need every possible way to discover and respond to our world for one simple but powerful reason: No one way can get it all.

The arts are forms of thought as powerful in what they communicate as mathematical and scientific symbols. They are ways we human beings “talk” to each other .They are the language of civilization through which we express our fears, our curiosities, our hungers, our discoveries, our hopes. The arts are ways we give form to our ideas and imagination so that they can be shared with others. When we do not give children access to an important way of expressing themselves such as music, we take away from them the meanings that music expresses.

Science and technology do not tell us what it means to be human. The arts do. Music is an important way we express human suffering, celebrations, the meaning and value of peace and love.

So music education is far more necessary than people seem to realize.

1.According to paragraph 1, students      .

A．regard music as a way of entertainment

B．disagree with their parents on education

C．view music as an overlooked subject

D．prefer the arts to science

2.In Paragraph 2, the author uses jazz an example to      .

A．compare it with rock music

B．show music identifies a society

C．introduce American musical traditions

D．prove music influences people’s lifestyles

3.According to the passage, the arts and science        .

A．approach the world from different angles

B．explore different phenomena of the world

C．express people’s feeling in different ways

D．explain what it means to be human differently

4.What is the main idea of the passage?

A．Music education deserves more attention.

B．Music should be of top education priority.

C．Music is an effective communication tool.

D．Music education makes students more imaginative.

Answer

1.A

2.B

3.A

4.A

【解析】

1.A 文章第一段指出，学生把音乐当做一种娱乐方式，A选项正确。按照第一段所说，学生和他们的家长对课程持同样的态度，B错误。学生和家长认为音乐很好但不重要，并不认为音乐被忽视了，但实际上他们确实忽视了音乐，C错误。D选项是正反混淆，错误。

2.B 举例子都是为了说明主旨的，就事论事的。答案显然错误，排除A、C选项。D选项是偷换了概念，文中指出音乐只是反应我们的特征和价值观，并不是影响我们的生活方式。B选项与第二段首、尾句的意思一致，正确。

3.A 文中第三段指出，音乐和科学是接触世界的不同方式，A选项是该意思的同意转述，正确。B选项是偷换概念，音乐和科学不是探索不同的现象，而是在同一个现象中探索不同的意义。偷换概念是出题者经常使用的手法，特别具有迷惑性，考生在平时训练时一定要细心查看。C和D都是以偏概全，根据倒数第三段、倒数第二段段可知arts符合C、D的说法，但科学不符合。

4.A纵观全文，特别是最后一段，我们可以看出，这篇文章的主旨在于呼吁音乐教育应该得到应有的重视。