a passage about music

[san2612]

Music can bring us to tears or to our feet, drive us into battle or lull us to sleep. Music is indeed remarkable in its power over all humankind, and perhaps for that very reason, no human culture on earth has ever lived without it. From discoveries made in France and Slovenia even Neanderthal man, as long as 53,000 years ago, had developed surprisingly sophisticated, sweet-sounding flutes carved from animal bones. It is perhaps then, no accident that music should strike such a chord with the limbic system – an ancient part of our brain, evolutionarily speaking, and one that we share with much of the animal kingdom. Some researchers even propose that music came into this world long before the human race ever did. For example, the fact that whale and human music have so much in common even though our evolutionary paths have not intersected for nearly 60 million years suggests that music may predate humans. They assert that rather than being the inventors of music, we are latecomers to the musical scene.

Humpback whale composers employ many of the same tricks that human songwriters do. In addition to using similar rhythms, humpbacks keep musical phrases to a few seconds, creating themes out of several phrases before singing the next one. Whale songs in general are no longer than symphony movements, perhaps because they have a similar attention span. Even though they can sing over a range of seven octaves, the whales typically sing in key, spreading adjacent notes no father apart than a scale. They mix percussive and pure tones in pretty much the same ratios as human composers – and follow their ABA form, in which a theme is presented, elaborated on and then revisited in a slightly modified form. Perhaps most amazing, humpback whale songs include repeating refrains that rhyme. It has been suggested that whales might use rhymes for exactly the same reasons that we do: as devices to help them remember. Whale songs can also be rather catchy. When a few humpbacks from the Indian Ocean strayed into the Pacific, some of the whales they met there quickly changed their tunes – singing the new whales’ songs within three short years. Some scientists are even tempted to speculate that a universal music awaits discovery.


1. why did the author write the passage?
(a) To describe the music for some animals, including humans
(b) To illustrate the importance of music to whales
(c) To show that music is not a human or even modern invention
(d) To suggest that music is independent of life forms that use it

I chose C but the answer is A. Why A is correct and C is not?

2. The word “refrains” in line 22 is closest in meaning to
(a) tunes
(b) notes
(c) musical phrases
(d) sounds

I chose C but the answer is A. There are so many meanings of the word "refrains". Why "tunes" is closest?


refrain:
1.
a. A phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, especially at the end of each stanza.
b. Music for the refrain of a poem.
2. A song or melody.
3. A repeated utterance or theme

 

[Raymott]

Music can bring us to tears or to our feet, drive us into battle or lull us to sleep. Music is indeed remarkable in its power over all humankind, and perhaps for that very reason, no human culture on earth has ever lived without it. From discoveries made in France and Slovenia even Neanderthal man, as long as 53,000 years ago, had developed surprisingly sophisticated, sweet-sounding flutes carved from animal bones. It is perhaps then, no accident that music should strike such a chord with the limbic system – an ancient part of our brain, evolutionarily speaking, and one that we share with much of the animal kingdom. Some researchers even propose that music came into this world long before the human race ever did. For example, the fact that whale and human music have so much in common even though our evolutionary paths have not intersected for nearly 60 million years suggests that music may predate humans. They assert that rather than being the inventors of music, we are latecomers to the musical scene.

Humpback whale composers employ many of the same tricks that human songwriters do. In addition to using similar rhythms, humpbacks keep musical phrases to a few seconds, creating themes out of several phrases before singing the next one. Whale songs in general are no longer than symphony movements, perhaps because they have a similar attention span. Even though they can sing over a range of seven octaves, the whales typically sing in key, spreading adjacent notes no father apart than a scale. They mix percussive and pure tones in pretty much the same ratios as human composers – and follow their ABA form, in which a theme is presented, elaborated on and then revisited in a slightly modified form. Perhaps most amazing, humpback whale songs include repeating refrains that rhyme. It has been suggested that whales might use rhymes for exactly the same reasons that we do: as devices to help them remember. Whale songs can also be rather catchy. When a few humpbacks from the Indian Ocean strayed into the Pacific, some of the whales they met there quickly changed their tunes – singing the new whales’ songs within three short years. Some scientists are even tempted to speculate that a universal music awaits discovery.


1. why did the author write the passage?
(a) To describe the music for some animals, including humans
(b) To illustrate the importance of music to whales
(c) To show that music is not a human or even modern invention
(d) To suggest that music is independent of life forms that use it

I chose C but the answer is A. Why A is correct and C is not?
I agree that C is the best answer, but who really knows why the author wrote it? A is not the dominant theme of this passage.


2. The word “refrains” in line 22 is closest in meaning to
(a) tunes
(b) notes
(c) musical phrases
(d) sounds

I chose C but the answer is A. There are so many meanings of the word "refrains". Why "tunes" is closest?
I would also have chosen C.

refrain:
1.
a. A phrase, verse, or group of verses repeated at intervals throughout a song or poem, especially at the end of each stanza.
b. Music for the refrain of a poem.
2. A song or melody.
3. A repeated utterance or theme

These were bad questions. Leave them in the huge trash bin by the door.