Despite the enormous contribution of the music industry to the UK economy and the huge benefits to children, the government rema

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问题    Despite the enormous contribution of the music industry to the UK economy and the huge benefits to children, the government remains quiet about its importance in schools, but instead announced plans to try mental health training for pupils recently. It has not dawned on politicians that this can be achieved through the arts.
   Music education has become harder to access since 2010, when new measures were introduced to boost the number of students studying science and languages, and since then the number of students taking music at A-level has dropped by about 9% as teachers homed in on "academic" subjects.
   Children are compelled to take up private tuition, putting those who cannot afford such lessons at a disadvantage. In 2014, the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain found that out of its members aged 7 to 13, nearly 70% of those at state school received private education. In 2012-13, only 10% of music students at universities came from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds.
   But that’s not the only problem. For a creative subject, music has always been taught in a far too academic way, meaning that theoretical knowledge is the main route to advancement. While there are routes into musical careers for the untrained, there are also dozens of choirs and amateur collectives that put a huge focus on musical notation.
   This is an obscure, tricky language that can only be read by a small number of people, most of whom have benefited from private education. Children who cannot comprehend it are written off even when they are capable performers.
   The insistence on theoretical understanding is supported by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, which sets the most widely-used music exams. To meet its requirements, pupils must work through limited repertoires of old, mostly classical music, focusing their efforts on mastering musical literacy, above songwriting, composing or enjoyment.
   So there is not only a wealthy elite presiding over music, but an academic one, which decides what sort of knowledge and ability make children competent — even though, like artists, musicians vary immensely in their tastes, tools and learning mechanisms.
   Sure, we may not be able to tell the difference between a low sound and a high sound, but we can play our favorite songs. That is all I wanted from music.
   I worry that the current state of play means many children are locked out. As a discipline, music needs to attract a bigger crowd. Diversity breeds diversity, and teaching is where this needs to start.
The underlined words in Paragraph Two probably mean______.

选项 A、directed their attention to
B、became quite indifferent to
C、taught students at home
D、assigned no homework for

答案A

解析 文章第二段的home in on的含义是give a lot of attention to something。从上文中可以判断老师们把精力转向academic subjects(核心课程),包括science和languages。
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