Directions: Read the following text. Choose the best
word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B,’ C or D on the ANSWER
SHEET. Food and oxygen pass easily from
mother to fetus (an unborn baby). Now it seems that fleeting sadness or
happiness is also 1 to an unborn baby.
Stress or depression in pregnancy can 2 a fetus, but less is known about the 3 of transient emotions. To 4 ,
Kazuyuki Shinohara and colleagues at Nagasaki University in Japan showed 10
pregnant volunteers a cheery 5-minute clip from the musical The Sound of Music.
Another 14 watched a tear-jerking 5 minutes from The Champ. Each clip was
sandwiched between two "neutral" samples 5 the team could 6 any changes in
fetal movements against a baseline. The women listened to the
films through headphones to 7 that only
the effect of their 8 , not the sounds,
were being measured. "Fetuses can hear by the last three months," says
Shinohara. The team 9 the number of
arm, leg and whole body movements 10 ultrasound and found that during the happy film clip the fetuses moved their
arms 11 more than when the pregnant
women watched a neutral clip. 12 , the
fetuses of sad women moved their arms less. What makes the
13 of happy mothers wave isn’t clear.
14 , such movement is a(n) 15 of a working nervous and motor system, says
Alexander Heazell at the University of Manchester, UK. He says the study offers
us insights into how 16 influences
affect fetuses. Shinohara suggests that sad- ness 17
more of the "fight or flight" hormone, which redirects blood away
from the uterus. The’ fetus diverts the reduced blood
18 to its brain and heart and away from its limbs.
19 it’s too early to use the study to
20 women.