A
A couple of years ago, music psychologist Elizabeth Margulis decided to make some changes to the music of Luciano Berio. Berio was one of the most famous classical composers of the 20th century. After loading his most famous piece into a computer editing program, she just randomly started cutting.
The idea behind this act was simple: Margulis wanted to see if she could make people like Berio's music more by making it more repetitive.
Margulis knew that 90 percent of the music we listen to is music we've heard before. We return again and again to our favorite songs, listening over and over to the same musical riffs (重复乐段), which themselves repeat over and over inside the music, and she'd become obsessed with understanding why repetition is so compelling (引人入胜的). This is why she was razoring the music of Berio — because his music isn't at all repetitive.
We are drawn to repetition. It surrounds us, not just in modern American pop music, Margulis says, but everywhere. “Musical repetitiveness isn't really an individual feature of music that's arisen over the past few hundred years in the West，” she says. “It seems to be a cultural universal. Not only does every known human culture make music, but also, every known human culture makes music in which repetition is a defining (典型的) element.”
Why? One part of the answer is what's known as the mere exposure effect.
Psychologists have found that people tend to start off wary (谨慎的) of — or even unfriendly to — new things, which makes sense from an evolutionary perspective. But then the act of mere exposure changes our feelings. We typically feel more warmly toward things we encounter again and again.
So mere exposure is one of the reasons we respond so well to repetition — both of music and in music — but Margulis clearly doesn't think it's the whole story. She says repetition also allows us to shift (转移) our attention around, from the surface aspects of the music to other aspects. So basically, part of what the repetition in music allows us to do is leave ourselves. In some small way, it allows us to shift and adjust our reality. And reality can often use some adjusting.
语篇解读：本文是一篇说明文。主要介绍了为什么我们在听音乐的时候，会发现音乐总是重复及重复的作用等。
1．Why did Margulis change Berio's music?
A．To find the role of repetition.
B．To show her talent in music.
C．To make his music more famous.
D．To test a computer editing program.
解析：选A 细节理解题。根据第二段的“if she could make people like Berio's music more by making it more repetitive”和第三段的“she'd become obsessed with understanding why repetition is so compelling (引人入胜的)”可知，她这样做的原因就是想了解音乐重复的作用。
2．If we hear new music again and again, we ________.
A．can't deal with its sound better
B．tend to be cautious of it very much
C．may expect something from it consciously
D．won't know when we have heard it
解析：选C 推理判断题。根据倒数第二段的“But then the ...again and again.”可知，如果我们反复听新的音乐，我们或许会有意识地从中期望一些东西。
3．From the last paragraph, we can infer the repetition makes us ________.
A．experience the content of the songs
B．respond to the whole music better
C．remember the words of songs clearly
D．shift our experience of reality around us
解析：选D 细节理解题。结合最后一段的“She says repetition ...adjust our reality.”可知，音乐中的重复会使我们从事情的表面看到其他的方面，以及暂时的逃离现实等。
4．What might be the most suitable title for the passage?
A．To play music again and again
B．To be exposed to music fully
C．To enjoy the beauty of music
D．To find the secret to musical effects
解析：选A 标题归纳题。本文主要解释了为什么音乐中会有不断地重复，以及这种音乐的重复起着什么作用等情况，因此A项符合主题。
