I am studying to take the TOEFL exam, which I need to pass if I have any hope of a job promotion. The problem I encountered is the following.
The TOEFL textbook gives me the following example. (It is talking about the acoustic function of human body).
Whenever you speak, your vocal cords vibrate.
The slower the vibration, the lower the pitch.
To raise the pitch of vibrating string, tighten it.
My research:
After googling and looking up the different terms in a dictionary, I came to think that the expression in bold might refer to the fiber of the human beings' vocal cord.
At birth, vocal cords are composed of a uniform, gel-like material. As the vocal cords mature, fibers develop within the gel, eventually forming a multilayered, laminated string. Imagine a set of guitar strings glued close together with gelatin.
(I don't understand the part "Imagine a set of guitar strings glued close together with gelatin")
A simple string
Despite the complexities of the vocal cord structure, Titze says he was surprised at how well the model of a simple vibrating string explained the cord's range. "Most people would laugh at using a simple vibrating string model for something as complicated as a 3-D, nonhomogeneous tissue structure," he says. "But the string model does an incredibly good job of explaining this range of frequencies."
So my final assumption is that the "vibrating strings" would mean some sort of fibers comprising of a human being's vocal cord.
Would my assumption/understanding be correct?
Thank you for your any support sincerely.