Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
There is nothing to suggest that Evelyn Glennie is profoundly deaf. She insists that her deafness is irrelevant to her musicianship, but there is no doubt that her obvious handicap has turned a remarkable career into a miraculous one. Glennie was eight when her hearing began to fail; by twelve she had lost it completely and feared she would have to give up the music she loved. But a doctor’s suggestion that she should become an accountant rather than follow a hopeless musical career strengthened her will to succeed.
As it turned out, music was one of the most advantageous careers she could have chosen and is one reason why her speech remains so extraordinarily correct, despite her deafness. Occasionally she listens to recordings by holding a cassette player between her knees, interpreting the vibrations and the shaking movements. Her deafness is one of the reasons for her unique style, for she cannot listen and be influenced by other performances and she has often declared that getting her hearing back would be the worst thing that could happen to her.
As a result of her devotion to her music and her determination to succeed, she has doubled the range of works available for percussion music in Europe and introduced instruments previously unheard of in the west. She has also asked composers to write more than fifty new pieces of music for these instruments, and has set up a library of three hundred works for other musicians to use.
(Adapted from Richmond FCE Practice Tests)
