More than a century ago, the composer and bandleader John Philip Sousa warned that technology would destroy music, who said, "These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy ... in front of every house in the summer evenings you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear these terrible machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left." Music has greatly changed in the past hundred years, which has been everywhere in our world: rivers of digital melody flow on the Internet or on disc; MP3 players with forty thousand songs can be put in a back pocket or a purse. Yet, for most of us, music is no longer something we do ourselves, or even watch other people do in front of us. It has become a radically virtual medium, an art without a face. Ever since Edison invented the phonograph cylinder , people have been assessing what the medium of recording has done for and to the art of music. Sousa was a spokesman for the party of doom; in the opposite corner are the utopians , who argue that technology has not imprisoned music but liberated it. Before Edison came along, Beethoven's symphonies could be heard only in select concert halls. Now the recordings carry the man from Bonn to the corners of the earth. Glenn Gould, after renouncing live performance in 1964, predicted that within the century the public concert would disappear into the electronic air. Having discovered much of my favorite music through LPs and CDs, I am not about to join Sousa's party. Modern urban environments are often so soulless or ugly that I'm grateful for the humanizing touch of electronic sound. But neither can I accept Gould's slashing futurism. I want to be aware of technology's effects, positive and negative. Fortunately, scholars and critics have been methodically exploring this _ for many decades, trying to figure out exactly what happens when we listen to music with no musicians in the room. The author's attitude towards the recorded music may best be described as _ . A) dissatisfied B) defensive C) optimistic D) objective
D
(Question)
To some, it's a dream job---eating delicious meals for free and then writing about them. But _ Karen Fernau, a food writer for The Arisona Republic, said when she first started her job -she began to gain weight. "I always looked forward to lunch before this job, then all of a sudden lunch was all day every day. " she says. Nine years later, keeping her weight steady and her health intact is a daily battle. If she knows she will be going to a tasting at a bakery or eating a four-course meal, she usually eats fruits or salads throughout the day. Now she is always keeping track of what's in the food she eats and she says most people don't even look at or consider it. At one tasting task alone, she says, upward of l,000 calories is often added to her day. That's about half of the recommended total calories per day for the average adult. But even though she's thought of a special eating method, Fernau says sticking to it is a daily battle. And food editors, writers and critics across the country couldn't agree more. "When I'm at home or not eating for work, it's healthy food to the extreme," says Phil Vettel, who's been a restaurant critic for the Chicago Tribune for 19 years. Vettle, who eats dinner at four restaurants each week, says unlike most professions, he has no right to choose. "If I'm going out to eat, I can't choose the healthiest thing on the menu, I have to eat when they're bringing me. " While Vettel exercises when he can, Joe Yonan, a food editor at The Washington Post, has strengthened his exercise habits since he started the job two years ago. Yonan says he realized early on that he was gaining weight and immediately hired a personal trainer to meet with three times a week, on top of his body training three to five times a week. Still, it's a struggle that many Americans might envy. After all, it's one thing to get your calories from lobster tails or a delicate chocolate cookie and quite another to get them from sodas and fast-food burgers. What is mentioned to be a method that food writers use to keep fit? A) Not eating anything except for the free meals. B) Writing down everything they put into their mouth. C) Hiring a personal trainer for special exercise instructions. D) Choosing only the healthy food on the menu.
(Answer)
C
Forks trace their origins back to the ancient Greeks. Forks at that time were fairly large with two tines that aided in the cutting of meat in the kitchen. The tines prevented meat from twisting or moving during cutting and allowed food to slide off more easily than it would with a knife. By the 7th century A.D., royal courts of the Middle East began to use forks at the table for dining. From the 10th through the 13th centuries, forks were fairly common among the wealthy in Byzantium. In the 11th century, a Byzantine wife brought forks to Italy; however, they were not widely adopted there until the 16th century. Then in 1533, forks were brought from Italy to France. The French were also slow to accept forks, for using them was thought to be awkward. In 1608, forks were brought to England by Thomas Coryate, who saw them during his travels in Italy. The English first ridiculed forks as being unnecessary. "Why should a person need a fork when God had given him hands?" they asked. Slowly, however, forks came to be adopted by the wealthy as a symbol of their social status. They were prized possessions made of expensive materials intended to impress guests. By the mid 1600s, eating with forks was considered fashionable among the wealthy British. Early table forks were modeled after kitchen forks, but small pieces of food often fell through the two tines or slipped off easily. In late 17th century France, larger forks with four curved tines were developed. The additional tines made diners less likely to drop food, and the curved tines served as a scoop so people did not have to constantly switch to a spoon while eating. By the early 19th century, four-tined forks had also been developed in Germany and England and slowly began to spread to America. Why were forks made into a curved shape? A) They could be used to scoop food as well. B) They looked more fashionable in this way. C) They were designed in this way for export to the US. D) They ensured the meat would not twist while being cut.
A