2018年7月28日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：book review on musicophilia

2018年7月28日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Book review on Musicophilia

Norman M. Weinberger reviews the latest work of Oliver Sacks on music.

A Music and the brain are both endlessly fascinating subjects, and as a neuroscientist specialising in auditory learning and memory, I find them especially intriguing. So I had high expectations of Musicophilia, the latest offering from neurologist and prolific author Oliver Sacks. And I confess to feeling a little guilty reporting that my reactions to the book are mixed.

B Sacks himself is the best part of Musicophilia. He richly documents his own life in the book and reveals highly personal experiences. The photograph of him on the cover of the book-which shows him wearing headphones, eyes closed, cleariy enchanted as he listens to Alfred Brendel perform Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata-makes a positive impression that is borne out by the contents of the book. Sacks's voice throughout is steady and erudite but never pontifical. He is neither self-conscious nor self-promoting.

C The preface gives a good idea of what the book will deliver. In it Sacks explains that he wants to convey the insights gleaned from the "enormous and rapidly growing body of work on the neural underpinnings of musical perception and imagery, and the complex and often bizarre disorders to which these are prone.” He also stresses the importance of “the simple art of observation” and “the richness of the human context” He wants to combine “observation and description with the latest in technology,” he says, and to imaginatively enter into the experience of his patients and subjects. The reader can see that Sacks, who has been practicing neurology for 40 years, is torn between the “old-fashioned” path o observation and the newfangled, high-tech approach: He knows that he needs to take heed of the latter, but his heart lies with the former.

D The book consists mainly of detailed descriptions of cases, most of them involving patients whom Sacks has seen in his practice. Brief discussions of contemporary neuroscientific reports are sprinkled liberally throughout the text. Part, "Haunted by Music", begins with the strange case of Tony Cicoria, a nonmusical, middle-aged surgeon who was consumed by a love of music after being hit by lightning. He suddenly began to crave listening to piano music, which he had never cared for in the past. He started to play the piano and then to compose music, which arose spontaneously in his mind in a “torrent” of notes. How could this happen? Was the cause psychological? (He had had a near-death experience when the lightning struck him.)Or was it the direct result of a change in the auditory regions of his cerebral cortex? Electroencephalography (EEG) showed his brain waves to be normal in the mid-1990s, just after his, trauma and subsequent “conversion” to music. There are now more sensitive tests, but Cicoria, has declined to undergo them; he does not want to delve into the causes of his musicality. What a shame!

E Part II, "A Range of Musicality", covers a wider variety of topics, but unfortunately, some of the chapters offer little or nothing that is new. For example, chapter 13, which is five pages long, merely notes that the blind often have better hearing than the sighted. The most interesting chapters are those that present the strangest cases. Chapter 8 is about “amusia,” an inability to hear sounds as music, and "dysharmonia", a highly specific impairment of the ability to hear harmony, with the ability to understand melody left intact. Such specific “dissociations” are found throughout the cases Sacks recounts.

。。。。。。此处省略部分雅思阅读真题原文。

雅思阅读真题部分题目：

Questions 27-30

Choose the correct letter, A, B, Cor D

Write the correct letter in boxes 27-30 on your answer sheet

27. Why does the writer have a mixed feeling about the book?

A. The guilty feeling made him so.

B. The writer expected it to be better than it was.

C. Sacks failed to include his personal stories in the book.

D. This is the only book written by Sacks.

28. What is the best part of the book?

A. the photo of Sacks listening to music

B. the tone of voice of the book

C. the autobiographical description in the book

D. the description of Sacks's wealth

29. In the preface, what did Sacks try to achieve?

A. make a herald introduction of the research work and technique applied

B. give detailed description of various musical disorders

C. explain how people understand music

D. explain why he needs to do away with simple observation

30. What is disappointing about Tony Cicoria’s case?

A. He refuses to have further tests.

B. He can't determine the cause of his sudden musicality.

C. He nearly died because of the lightening.

D. His brain waves were too normal to show anything.

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