Buổi 75: Thi thử giữa khóa – Listening + Reading & tự đánh giá giữa chặng

Passage 1 – Learning an instrument as an adult

(Bài đọc tự viết; nhân vật và trường nhạc là giả định.)

A It is widely believed that musical instruments must be learned in childhood if they are to be learned well. Adults who take up the violin or piano are often warned, kindly or otherwise, that they have left it too late. Yet music teachers who work with adult beginners tell a more complicated story.

B Children do have certain advantages. They usually have more free time, fewer responsibilities and, perhaps most importantly, a greater tolerance for sounding bad. A child who plays a wrong note is rarely embarrassed; an adult may find the same mistake deeply discouraging. Teachers at the hypothetical Westbrook Music School report that the most common reason adults give up is not lack of ability but frustration at the gap between what they can hear in their heads and what they can actually play.

C Adults, however, bring strengths of their own. They are generally better at understanding theory, at organising their practice and at analysing what is going wrong. Many have also chosen to learn for their own reasons, rather than because a parent insisted, which can sustain motivation over difficult periods. One Westbrook teacher, Hannah Cole, says that her adult students often progress faster than children during the first year, even if they later find certain physical skills harder to refine.

D The question of practice is central. Short, frequent sessions appear to be more effective than long, occasional ones, and adults with busy lives may find this easier to manage than they expect: fifteen minutes a day is realistic for most people, whereas a single two-hour session at the weekend is easily cancelled. Cole also encourages students to record themselves, since listening back reveals problems that are hard to notice while playing.

E Perhaps the most important factor is expectation. Adults who hope to perform professionally are likely to be disappointed, but those who aim to play for their own enjoyment, or with friends, often reach a satisfying level within a few years. As Cole puts it, the goal for most adult learners is not to catch up with people who started at six, but to discover what they themselves are capable of.

Passage 2 – The value of boredom

(Bài đọc tự viết; nhà nghiên cứu và trường học là giả định.)

A Boredom has a poor reputation. It is associated with wasted time, restlessness and, in schools, with poor behaviour. Not surprisingly, much effort goes into eliminating it: entertainment is available on every phone, and children’s free time is increasingly filled with organised activities. A growing number of researchers, however, argue that boredom may serve a purpose, and that removing it entirely could have costs.

B The psychologist Dr Ruth Akinola describes boredom as a signal rather than a problem. In her view, it tells us that our current activity is not meeting our needs and prompts us to look for something more meaningful. Boredom becomes harmful, she suggests, only when people cannot act on that signal – when they are trapped in an unrewarding situation, or when they respond by reaching for the nearest distraction rather than thinking about what they actually want.

C One possible benefit is creativity. When the mind has nothing in particular to focus on, it tends to wander, and mind-wandering has been linked with the generation of new ideas. Akinola is cautious about overstating this, however. Boredom does not automatically lead to creativity, she notes; it simply creates the conditions in which creative thinking becomes possible.

D The constant availability of digital entertainment raises the question of whether people now experience boredom less often. Akinola believes the answer is more complicated. People may feel bored less often in the moment, but because they turn to their phones so quickly, they may also lose opportunities to tolerate boredom long enough for it to lead anywhere useful. She compares this to eating snacks whenever one feels slightly hungry, which may prevent a person from ever sitting down to a proper meal.

E Some schools have begun to experiment with this idea. At the hypothetical Hillside Primary School, teachers introduced a fifteen-minute period each week with no set task and no devices. At first, many children complained, and some teachers worried that the time was being wasted. After several weeks, however, teachers reported that children were starting their own games, drawing, or simply talking. The school’s head teacher admits that it is difficult to measure the effect, but says that staff have decided to continue.

F None of this means that boredom is always good. Chronic boredom at work, for instance, has been associated with lower job satisfaction, and boredom in classrooms can reflect teaching that fails to engage students. The argument is rather that short, occasional periods of boredom are a normal part of life, and that learning to tolerate them may be a skill worth developing.