Reading Comprehension: Muzak

“MUZAK”

 “One moment, please.” As your telephone call is put on hold, music suddenly swells through the receiver. Muzak, “the background music “ so familiar to us today in public places as well as on the telephone, was invented by General George Squier in 1922. It was originally designed to increase productivity in the workplace but is has also had other purposes; for example, in the 1920s , Muzak was introduced into the lifts of skyscrapers to calm the passengers. But, can background music control behaviour as well as feelings? Psychology Proffesor Adrian North conducted a study to discover if this music could influence customers’ choices. His team arranged for a supermarket to play French accordion and German brass-band music at different times to see if this affected the sale of wines from these countries. The wines were clearly labelled and identified by country name and flag to avoid confusion, and the prices of the wines were comparable. After two weeks, the results were clear. When the German music was broadcast, 73% of the wine sold was German. Conversely, when the French music was aired, 77% of the wine sold was French. Most of the customers interviewed after doing their shoppings insisted that they had no preference for either country’s wine.

QUESTIONS 

1.-ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS FROM THE TEXT:

 a) Why was background music originally designed?

b) What did Proffesor Adrian North wanr to discover?

c) How were French and German wines identified?

2.-SAY IF THESE STATEMENTS ARE TRUE OR FALSE . PROVIDE SOME EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXT. 

a) Muzak was introduced into the lifts of skyscrapers to make people work harder.

 b) Customers had previous preference for French wines.

 3.- FIND WORDS OR PHRASES IN THE TEXT THAT MEAN :

a) Become larger:

 b) Aims:

 c) Similar:

 4.1.- Change into the active voice:

Background music was invented by George Squier. _______________________________________________________________

 4.2.- Write the question for this answer :

 Paul has been listening to music for three hours. _________________________________________________________________?

4.3.- Write the following sentence in the negative:

The wines were clearly labelled and identified . _________________________________________________________________

 5.-WRITING: Write an e-mail to a friend or relative telling him/her about your plans for next summer