IELTS R e a d i n g Test 12

Section 1
The Mozart Effect

A. Music has been used for centuries to heal t h e body. In t h e Ebers Papyrus (one of t h e

earliest medical documents, circa 1550 BC), it was recorded t h a t physicians chanted t o

heal t h e sick (Castleman, 1994). In various cul-tures, we have observed singing as part of

healing rituals. In t h e world of Western medicine, however, using music in medicine lost

popularity until t h e introduction of t h e radio. Researchers then started to notice t h a t

lis-tening to music could have significant physical effects. Therapists noticed music could

help calm anxiety, and researchers saw t h a t listening t o music, could cause a drop in

blood pressure. In addition to these two areas, music has been used w i t h cancer

chemotherapy to reduce nausea, during surgery to reduce stress hormone production,

during childbirth, and in stroke re-covery (Castleman, 1994 and Westley, 1998). I t has

been shown t o decrease pain as well as enhance the effectiveness of t h e immune system.

In Japan, compilations of music are used as medication of sorts. For example, i f you want

to cure a headache o r a migraine, the album suggested is Mendelssohn's "Spring Song",

Dvorak's "Humoresque", o r part of George Gershwin's "An American in Paris" (Campbell,

1998). Music is also being used to assist in learning, in a phenomenon called t h e Mozart

Effect.

B. Frances H. Rauscher, PhD, first demonstrated t h e correlation between mu-sic and

learning in an experiment in 1993. His experiment indicated t h a t a 10-minute dose of

Mozart could temporarily boost intelligence. Groups of students were given intelligence

tests after listening to silence, relaxation tapes, o r Mozart's "Sonata for Two Pianos in D

M a j o r " for a short time. He found t h a t after silence, t h e average I Q score was 110, and

after t h e relax-ation tapes, t h e score rose a point. After listening t o Mozart's music,

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 how-ever, t h e score jumped to 119 (Westley, 1998). Even students w h o did n o t like t h e

music still had an increased score in t h e I Q test. Rauscher hy-pothesised t h a t "listening

to complex, non-repetitive music, like Mozart's, may stimulate neural pathways t h a t are

important in thinking" (Castleman, 1994).

C. The same experiment was repeated o n rats by Rauscher and Hong Hua Li f r o m Stanford.

Rats also demonstrated enhancement in their intelligence performance. These n e w

studies indicate t h a t rats t h a t were exposed t o Mozart's showed "increased gene

expression of BDNF (a neural growth factor), CREB (a learning and memory compound),

and Synapsin I (a synap-tic growth protein) " in t h e brain's hippocampus, compared w i t h

rats in t h e control group, which heard only white noise (e.g. t h e whooshing sound of a V

radio tuned between stations).

D. How exactly does t h e Mozart Effect work? Researchers are still trying to determine t h e

actual mechanisms for t h e formation of these enhanced learning pathways.

Neuroscientists suspect t h a t music can actually help build and strengthen connections

between neurons in t h e cerebral cortex in a process similar to what occurs in brain

development despite its type. When a baby is born, certain connections have already

been made - like connections for heartbeat and breathing. As n e w information is learned

and m o t o r skills develop, n e w neural connections are formed. Neurons t h a t are n o t used

will eventually die while those used repeatedly will f o r m strong connections. Although a

large number of these neural connections require experience, they must also occur

within a certain t i m e frame. For example, a child born w i t h cataracts cannot develop

connections within t h e visual cortex. If t h e cataracts are removed by surgery right away,

t h e child's vi-sion develops normally. However, after t h e age of 2, i f the cataracts are

re-moved, t h e child will remain blind because those pathways cannot establish

themselves.

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Section 3
Long-Term Forecast: Hot and Dry

A. Melting land ice in t h e Arctic is set to cause a global rise in sea levels, leading to disastrous

effects for both man and wildlife. Many species worldwide are threatened w i t h

extinction, and low-lying islands and landmasses will disappear entirely. But t h e havoc

wreaked by t h e effect of greenhouse gases w o n ' t be confined t o just too much water,

b u t t h e absence of it, as well. In other words, desertification. A decrease in t h e total

amount of rainfall in arid and semi-arid areas could increase t h e total area of drylands

worldwide, and thus t h e total amount of land potentially at risk f r o m desertification.

B. Desertification is officially recognised as land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-

humid areas resulting f r o m various factors including climatic variations and human

activities. This degradation of formerly productive land is a complex process. I t involves

multiple causes, and it proceeds at varying rates in different climates. Desertification may

intensify a general climatic trend, o r initiate a change in local climate, both leading

towards greater aridity. The more arid conditions associated w i t h desertification

accelerate t h e depletion of vegetation and soils. Land degradation occurs all over t h e

world, b u t i t is only referred t o as desertification when it takes place in drylands. This is

because these areas are especially prone to more permanent damage as different areas

of degraded land spread and merge together to form desert-like conditions.

C. Global warming brought about by increasing greenhouse gas levels in t h e atmosphere is

expected to increase t h e variability of weather conditions and extreme events. M a n y

dryland areas face increasingly l o w and erratic rainfalls, coupled w i t h soil erosion by wind

and t h e drying-up of water resources through increased regional temperatures.

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