Reading passage 2

READING PASSAGE 2

Answer Questions 17-32, which are based on Reading Passage 2 on pages 6 and 7.
The Nuisance (small details) of Noise

1. 
   As long as people have lived in close vicinity, they have been complaining about the noises other people make and yearning for quiet and relief from these disturbances.
   

To be sure, exposure to very loud noise, measured in high decibel levels, can impact more than a person's mental state. About 2500 years ago, the Greek physician Hippocrates identified the condition 'tinnitus', a ringing in the ears often caused by prolonged exposure to loud noise. In modem times, people are often subjected to noise above 85 decibels. That's indisputably a serious threat to one's health, enough to cause significant hearing loss over time. Yet for some people, it's not just the loud noise that's a problem; moderate, everyday noise at low decibels is also a constant nuisance.

2. 
   It has often been asserted that a kind of absolute quietness is needed to achieve truly enlightened thinking. Famous philosophers dating back to Plato of ancient Greece have pointed to the need for quiet in order to really perceive things clearly. Only when the outside world is tuned out, it is said, can the thinker understand the true nature of the world. The French writer Blaise Pascal complained in 1660 that 'the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room'. Two centuries later, the German philosopher Schopenhauer wrote that 'noise is a torture to intellectual people'.
   

3. 
   Yet research reveals something of a paradox: The more time and effort people spend trying to keep unwanted sound out, the more sensitive to it they become. Take the example of Scottish writer Thomas Carlyle. In 1831, he moved to London and soon complained in a letter to the authorities about the noise outside his window. He spent a fortune soundproofing the study in his house, but he couldn't be satisfied.(23) His unusually perceptive ears exaggerated the slightest sound, and (22) he was forced to retreat to the countryside.
   

4. 
   In 1907 an American, Julia Barnett Rice, founded a citizens' group – (18) the Society for the Suppression of Unnecessary Noise of New York-to combat the noise of her city. It attracted over 200 members from all walks of life. At a time before automobiles crowded the streets of New York, Rice and her group set out (24) to restrict sea captains from blaring their horns as they navigated boats along the city waterways. The society next convinced the local government to establish quiet zones around hospitals and schools, so that patients could recover and children could study in peace. It even proposed regulations on the sidewalk vendors who shouted about their products to the hundreds of pedestrians passing by. However, in the end, by focusing on noise Mrs Rice only became more sensitive to it. She finally turned to architects to help build a quiet place deep under her
   

house.

5. 
   (26-27)In modem cities, governments around the world have stepped up to treat noise as a kind of environmental pollution, to be regulated the same way that smog and other chemical byproducts are regulated in factories. In New York, for instance, airline pilots are
   

required to fly higher and more slowly around populated areas. City laws also specify the time of day that landscapers, construction crews and repairmen can use power tools and other noisy machines in residential neighborhoods. (21) In recent years, New York City has sent out police with sound-measuring devices to go after noisemakers, and installed hypersensitive listening devices to monitor the soundscape. Citizens are also encouraged to call a special telephone hotline to report noise violations.

6. 
   Yet laws against noisemakers have not satisfied our desire for quietness, so consumer products have emerged to meet the demand of increasingly sensitive consumers. One early and impractical attempt was called 'The Isolator', invented in 1925 by Hugo Gemsback. This was a large heavy helmet made of lead, with thin eye slits for viewing. It had a tube that could be connected to an oxygen tank, allowing the user to breathe without letting in noise. Around the same time, materials were designed to prevent noise outside from coming in. These include sound-muffling curtains, non-hardwood floors with synthetic lining, and better insulation for walls. No matter how thoughtful the design, however, unwanted sound continues to be a part of everyday life.
   

7. 
   Unable to suppress noise, consumers started trying to mask it with more pleasant audio, buying gadgets like white-noise machines or playing recorded versions of what they would hear in nature, from breaking waves to rustling forests, on their stereos. Today, there are hundreds of digital apps and technologies, including noise cancellation products that detect outside noise and render it inaudible. In a Sony print commercial for their noise-canceling headphones, the company depicts a world where the consumer exists in a sonic bubble as he walks along a strangely empty city street.
   

However, there is a risk to becoming accustomed to life without unwanted sounds from others. Psychologists warn that we may grow hyper-sensitized and isolated, and the outside world may seem increasingly noisy and hostile. The best strategy, they say, is to learn to live with, and to ignore, the nuisances of everyday sounds.