Text 1
Headphones have changed music from an inherently social experience to a highly individual form of entertainment. People can listen to music in almost any situation, including on their way to work, at the workplace, and at home, while their families listen to their own choices of music. While this flexibility is seen as a positive departure, studies link the use of headphones to feelings of isolation and decreased personal satisfaction.
Text 2
In 2014, a team led by Ineke Vogel analyzed 943 students in Dutch schools. They found that 20% exceeded safety standards for noise exposure due to listening to music on earphones or headphones on high volumes, and 10% of students experienced permanent hearing-related symptoms such as muffled sounds. Students whose hearing had been impacted were twice as likely to suffer from depression or adverse mental health as are those without damaged hearing.
Based on the texts, how would Vogel and colleagues (Text 2) most likely respond to the "studies" discussed in Text 1?
Correct
Incorrect
The question asks about the reaction of Vogel and colleagues (Text 1) to the studies mentioned in Text 1, so start with Text 1 and identify those studies. The first sentence of Text 1 states that headphones turned music from a social experience to an individual one. The second sentence states that people can listen to music basically anywhere, even while their family members "listen to their own choices of music." The third sentence points out a drawback with headphones: studies connect headphone usage to "feelings of isolation and decreased personal satisfaction."
Proceed to Text 2, focusing on Vogel and colleagues' viewpoint: they studied 943 Dutch students, found that 20% of them listen to music at unsafe high volumes, and that 10% of them had permanent hearing-related impairment such as sounds being muffled. Students with such issues were "twice as likely to suffer from depression or adverse mental health." Predict that Vogel and colleagues would say that the feelings of isolation and decreased personal satisfaction Text 1 reported were rooted in permanent hearing-related impairments. This prediction matches (D), the correct answer.
Incorrect choice (A) is a distortion; the issues raised by the studies in Text 1 were rooted in headphone usage specifically, not in the decline of listening to music in groups. Incorrect choice (B) is too extreme; although Vogel and colleagues discuss the consequences of damaged hearing in Text 2, that damage is caused by a minority of headphone users listening to music at unsafe high volumes. Incorrect choice (C) is a distortion; family members listening to different music is the result of widespread headphone usage throughout one's daily life, not the cause of it.
