高一英语阅读理解专项训练题.docxVIP

阅读理解 Where Did Music Come From? Look anywhere and you’ll find music. Without a single exception, every culture produces some form of it. Yet music’s origin remains one of the great secrets of human history. The oldest known instruments are 42,000-year-old bone flutes discovered in caves in Germany. Music surely appeared earlier, but the problem is that music doesn’t fossilize and our brains don’t fossilize. With little hard evidence, scientists still discuss what evolutionary purpose music serves or whether it serves any purpose at all. For many years, music researchers have more or less settled into two camps: those who believe the evolution of music is a biological adaptation, and those who believe it’s a cultural invention. In the latter argument, the music we love dearly is no more than “auditory cheesecake”, as evolutionary scientist Steven Pinker said. Rather than a biological adaptation in its own right, music is a pleasing byproduct of other adaptations, like language. “As far as biological cause and effect are concerned, music is useless,” Pinker said. “Music could disappear from our mankind and the rest of our lifestyle would be absolutely unchanged.” Some found this conclusion too dismissive. After all, the capacity to make and enjoy music seems rooted in each of us, just like other valuable adaptations. “These days music is a profession, but even ordinary people who never had a music lesson have implicit knowledge of the structure of the music of their culture,” says Sandra Trehub, a scientist at the University of Toronto. What’s more, Trehub studies music sense in babies. They are strongly attracted to music, and they can even remember music months after hearing it. “You see these amazing abilities,” she says, “and you have to think that there is a biological foundation for it.” That doesn’t necessarily mean we evolved that foundation for music, but many scientists have offered explanations for why we might have. Some argue music is a system for social