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TOEFL iBT 2026 Read an Academic Passage : une vraie question d'entraînement

Voici une série de questions tirée de nos sujets blancs, exactement telle qu'elle apparaît à l'examen. L'examen lui-même est en anglais.

The Castrato Voice and the Acoustics of the Baroque Opera HouseDuring the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, European opera houses employed castrato singers whose artificially preserved high voices combined with adult male lung capacity. Although modern audiences often assume that these performers succeeded chiefly because of their unusual vocal range, recent acoustic studies suggest that the architecture of Baroque theatres amplified their voices in ways that would not occur in a modern concert hall. The horseshoe-shaped auditorium, lined with wooden panels and shallow boxes, reflected high-frequency sound efficiently, allowing a single unamplified singer to be heard above a full orchestra.

This acoustic advantage, however, depended on conditions that proved fragile. As opera houses were enlarged and redesigned during the nineteenth century, upholstered seating and deeper stages absorbed the frequencies on which castrato voices relied. Composers gradually wrote roles for tenors and sopranos whose lower registers suited the new sonic environment. The decline of the castrato tradition, therefore, cannot be attributed solely to changing musical taste; it also reflected a transformation in the physical spaces where opera was performed.

1. What is the main purpose of the passage?

To argue that castrato singers were more talented than modern opera performersTo explain how architectural changes contributed to the disappearance of a vocal traditionTo compare the vocal ranges of tenors and sopranos in Baroque operaTo describe the training methods used to preserve castrato voices

2. According to the passage, what acoustic feature of Baroque opera houses helped castrato singers?

The use of wooden panels that absorbed low-frequency soundThe shallow boxes that reduced the distance between singer and audienceThe deep stages that allowed singers to project directly toward the orchestraThe horseshoe shape and reflective surfaces that strengthened high frequencies

3. Which of the following is NOT mentioned in the passage as a change in nineteenth-century opera houses?

The installation of upholstered seatingThe construction of deeper stagesThe enlargement of auditoriumsThe addition of electronic amplification

4. What can be inferred about castrato singers from the passage?

Their voices were less powerful than those of modern tenors.They were unable to perform without instrumental accompaniment.They preferred to sing in small, intimate theatres rather than large ones.Their success depended partly on conditions that later disappeared from opera houses.

5. The word "fragile" in the passage is closest in meaning to

rarely noticedeasily damagedcarefully plannedwidely praised

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