The medical world is gradually realizing that the quality of the environment in hospitals may play a significant role in the process of recovery from illness.
As part of a nationwide effort in Britain to bring art out of the galleries and into public places, some of the country's most talented artists have been called in to transform older hospitals and to soften the hard edges of modern buildings. Of the 2,500 National Health Service hospitals in Britain, almost 100 now have significant contemporary art in corridors, waiting areas and treatment rooms.
These recent initiatives(首创) owe a great deal to one artist, Peter Senior who set up his studio at a Manchester hospital in northeastern England during the early 1970s. He felt the artist had lost his place in modern society and that art should be enjoyed by a wider audience.
A typical hospital waiting room might have as many as 5,000 visitors each week. What a better place to hold regular exhibitions of art! Senior held the first exhibition of his own paintings in the outpatients waiting area of the Manchester Hospital in 1975. Believed to be Britain's first hospital artist, Senior was so much in demand that he was soon joined by a team of six young art school graduates.
The effect is striking. Now in the corridors and waiting rooms the visitor experiences a full view of fresh colors, playful images and restful courtyards.
The quality of the environment may reduce the need for expensive drugs when a patient is recovering from an illness. A study has shown that patients who had a view onto a garden needed half the number of strong pain killers compared with patients who had no view at all or only a brick wall to look at.
The underlined part "to soften the hard edges of modern buildings" in Paragraph 2 means"________".

A．to decorate hospitals with art collections

B．to make the corners of hospital buildings round

C．to change people's attitude toward hospitals

D．to replace the old buildings with modern buildings

Peter Senior is a(n) ________.

A．doctor interested in arts

B．artist who refuses to hold art exhibitions in hospitals

C．pioneer in introducing art into hospitals

D．artist who owns a great deal of property

The improvement of the hospital environment seems to be effective in ______.

A．making it unnecessary to give drugs to patients

B．helping the modern artists regain their status in society

C．calling in more talented artists to hospitals

D．helping patients recovering from illness

The writer’s attitude towards the effect of art exhibitions in hospitals is ______.

A．suspicious

B．positive

C．neutral(中立的)

D．unfavorable

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