If you’ve ever taken a class in drawing, painting or pottery and in spite of your best effort, couldn’t make the final result look anything like the model shown, you may have thought, “I don’t have a creative bone in my body.”
According to some scientists, who for the past 20 years have put the elusive (难以解释的) subject of creativity through the rigors (严谨) of research, you are underestimating yourself. Da Vinci you may never be, but when it comes to creativity, we are all somewhat blessed (享有). It’s learning to encourage this unique tool of extraordinary productivity, and then applying it in everything you do, that counts to tell you from figures like Da Vinci.
“Even if we don’t have the good fortune to discover a new chemical element or write a great story, the love of the creative process for its own sake is available to all,” says Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Creativity: Flow and Psychology of Discovery and Invention.
Most people believe the area of creativity has been awarded to those thought to have special talent. We look upon these “creative geniuses,” as we often call them, with great respect and a bit of envy. Their abilities, most people believe, ore bestowed (给予) by good genes, or, as if in Greek mythology (神话), from some kind of divine (天赐的) inspiration.
There is no doubt that the world is never short of highly talented and creative people. They are masters of their trades and stand heads-and-shoulders above commoners, making new pathways for others to follow, and providing greater context and understanding of our world. It could be said that without creativity humanity would not evolve so rapidly.
But like a publicly recognized creative baseball player who improves his skill through years of continuous training, foregoing other pursuits for the only passion, people who show the slightest unwillingness for tough labor may finally find their boasted (自夸的) ability disappear.
After closely studying 91 creative and influential people, including novelists, playwrights, composers, musicians and scientists, Csikszentmihalyi concludes that no one would ignore the sweat they shed (流淌) and their almost crazy willingness to follow their creative efforts to the very end, wherever that may be. These are the very things we all can master, so long as we’d like to.
1. It’s widely believed that creativity comes from ______.| A．good training people receive from artistic classes | B．the inborn genes or relevant gifts. |
| C．the tool we learn from masters like Da Vinci | D．certain Greek historical textbooks |
| A．Common people rather than creative ones lead in various professions. |
| B．People’s admiration of geniuses makes humanity develop quickly. |
| C．The field of baseball requires more gifts than hard work. |
| D．The building of creativity lies in devotion and effort. |
| A．giving up | B．counting on | C．referring to | D．turning to |
| A．How ordinary people and scientists view things differently. |
| B．The reasons for the development of various trades and humanity. |
| C．People’s misunderstanding of creativity and its true nature. |
| D．Ordinary people’s unwillingness to follow the examples of creative ones. |
相似题推荐
【推荐1】Daily life has its satisfactions, such as the perfect reply to a friend’s text message, the first after-work drink, or the unexpected gift.
Somehow we have pushed this pleasure to the back of the queue. A third of American adults report sleeping less than the recommended seven hours. Many of us feel under-rested. For some, the problem is modern life: emails, to-do lists and screens.
Now there’s increasing evidence that a lack of sleep is associated with higher risk of depression, cancer, and other problems. Research published in the European Heart Journal reports that heart disease was lower among people who went to sleep between 10 p.m. and 11 p.m., no matter how long they slept.
But after the appearance and rise of sleeping aids, is sleep the next part of human experience that will become increasingly tracked, counted and compared? We sigh at LinkedIn users who claim to wake up at Sam and learn Mandarin while meditating. But when people overcommit to sleeping well, it can be counter-productive.
Espie says we each have a sleep pattern that we figure out through trial and error. Genetically, some humans are larks and some are owls; the larks may just have better cardiovascular health. For an owl to try to fight their natural schedule, and sleep earlier, wouldn’t necessarily help.
Basic sleeping advice is notably consistent, including keeping a regular pattern, cutting back on alcohol and caffeine and taking away all bedroom distractions. Instead of just loading sleep advice on individuals, we could integrate aspects of it into public health.
A good night’s sleep is a profound pleasure. As far as possible, it should also remain a simple one.
| A．Such research is all well and good. |
| B．The risk is that we ignore the problem. |
| C．Then there are those who can’t sleep when they try. |
| D．For other people, it’s the demands of work or family. |
| E．But does any of these really compare to the joy of going to sleep? |
| F．Schools could start later to coincide with children’s body rhythms. |
| G．Stressing ourselves out about a lack of sleep can worsen the problem. |
【推荐2】Young kids’ brains are very sensitive to their moms’ voices, science has shown. But as kids grow into teens, everything changes. Teenagers’ brains are now more tuned in to strangers’ voices than those of their own moms’, new research shows.
The researchers scanned the brains of 7-to-6-year-olds as they listened to things said by their moms or by unfamiliar women. The words were pure gibberish: teebudieshawlt, keebudieshawlt and peebudieshawlt. Using such meaningless words allowed the scientists to study voices on their own, not what they were saying. As the kids listened, certain parts of their brains became active. This was especially true in brain regions that help us to detect rewards and pay attention.
Daniel Abrams, a researcher at Stanford University School of Medicine in California, and his colleagues have already known that younger kids’ brains respond more strongly to their mom’s voice than to a stranger’s. “In adolescence, we show the exact opposite of that,” Abrams says.
“These areas in the adolescent brain don’t stop responding to moms’ voices,” Abrams says. It’s just that unfamiliar voices become more rewarding and worthy of attention. Here’s why: As kids grow up, they expand their social connections beyond their family. So their brains need to begin paying more attention to that wider world.
But moms’ voices still have special power, especially in times of stress, one 2011 study with girls involved showed. Levels of stress dropped when these stressed-out girls heard their moms’ voices on the phone.
The brain seems to adapt to new needs that come with adolescence. “As we mature, our survival depends less and less on our moms’ support,” says Leslie Seltzer, a biological anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Instead,” she says, “we rely more and more on our friends and others closer to our own age.”
“So while both teens and their parents may sometimes feel frustrated by missed messages, that’s OK,” Abrams says. “This is the way the brain is wired, and there’s a good reason for it.”
1. What does the underlined word “gibberish” in paragraph 2 refer to?| A．Relaxation. | B．Disturbance. | C．Information. | D．Nonsense. |
| A．They desire real recognition. | B．They need more connections. |
| C．They are tired of their moms. | D．They have more energy to spare. |
| A．Unpleasant. | B．Exciting. | C．Comforting. | D．Strange. |
| A．It is frustrating and problematic. | B．It deserves scientific prevention. |
| C．It is normal and understandable. | D．It negatively affects their growth. |
【推荐3】Are you smarter than your parents and grandparents? According to James Flynn, a professor at a New Zealand university, you are! Over the course of the last century, people’s IQ test scores have gotten steadily higher — on average, three points higher each decade. This improvement is known as the “Flynn effect”, and scientists want to know what is behind it.
IQ tests are designed to measure general intelligence rather than knowledge. Flynn believes that intelligence partly comes from our parents and partly is the result of our environment, but the improvement in test scores has been happening too quickly to be explained by heredity (遗传). So what occurred in the 20th century to help people achieve higher scores?
Scientists have proposed several explanations for the Flynn effect. Some suggest that the improved test scores simply reflect an increased exposure to tests in general and the learning of test-taking techniques that help us perform better on any test. Others have pointed to better nutrition. Babies now are born larger, healthier, and with more brain development than in the past. Another suggested explanation is a change in educational styles, with teachers encouraging children to learn by discovering things for themselves rather than just memorizing information, which improves their problem-solving skills.
Flynn has limited the possible explanations after carefully examining test data and discovering that the improvement in scores has taken place in only certain parts of the IQ test. Test-takers are not doing better on the math or vocabulary sections of the test; they are doing better on the sections requiring reasoning and problem solving. For example, one part of the test shows a set of shapes, and test-takers must find the patterns and connections between them.
According to Flynn, this visual intelligence improves as the amount of technology in our lives increases. Every time you play a computer game, you are exercising exactly the kind of thinking and problem solving that helps you do well on one kind of intelligence test. So are you really smarter than your parents? In one very specific way, you may be.
1. According to the passage, the “Flynn effect” is ________.| A．an increase in IQ test scores over time |
| B．a method used to measure intelligence |
| C．the influence of technology on intelligence |
| D．a theory that connects intelligence to experience |
| A．To list the findings of Professor Flynn’s research. |
| B．To provide possible explanations that disprove Flynn’s ideas. |
| C．To outline different theories explaining the increase in IQ scores. |
| D．To describe how research was carried out in the measuring of intelligence. |
| A．exposing children to fewer tests |
| B．giving children clearer teaching instructions |
| C．getting children to memorize lots of information |
| D．encouraging children to find out things themselves |
| A．have discouraged people from taking exercise |
| B．have helped improve people’s visual intelligence |
| C．have made young people become less intelligent |
| D．have caused young people to have poorer vocabularies |
| A．Development of technology contributes to intelligence improvement on math. |
| B．Not all aspects of intelligence have increased. |
| C．The IQ test pattern should be changed. |
| D．The language ability of people has improved. |
【推荐1】When homework and tests keep you up late at night, you may plan to make up for your lost sleep during the weekends. But is it useful?
A study published in the journal Current Biology shows that the habit of sleeping in on weekends doesn’t fix the damage that has been done by a lack of sleep during the week. Even worse, it may damage your health.
In the study, which was conducted over 10 days, 36 healthy young men and women with different sleep requirements were divided into three groups. The first group were asked to sleep nine hours a night and the second group five hours a night. The members of the third group slept for five hours on weekdays but rested as long as they wanted on the weekend.
The researchers found that people who lacked sleep ate more snacks and gained weight quickly. However, this wasn’t the case for the first group.
That could be partially due to the shifting of the biological clock and changes to certain body hormones, especially hunger hormones. In order to catch up on their sleep during weekends, people in the third group would eat later as a habit. So their biological clocks shifted, which also changed the production of hunger hormones.
“The hormone leptin(瘦素) decreases appetite(胃口), while the hormone ghrelin(饿素) increases appetite,” explained US researcher Vsevolod Polotsky. “Sleep shortage causes leptin to drop and ghrelin to rise, so you’re hungry and eat more.”
And even if they tried to sleep for as long as they wanted to during weekends, according to researchers, it was still not enough because they found it difficult to fall asleep.
Moreover, short and insufficient sleep schedules will lead to an inability to change blood sugar and increase the risk of metabolic(新陈代谢) disease in the long term.
1. Which of the following is true about the study?| A．Participants were divided into two groups. |
| B．Researchers studied 36 children and adults. |
| C．It lasted for more than two weeks. |
| D．Each group follow different sleep requirements. |
| A．increasing | B．lacking | C．changing | D．shortening |
| A．They need to create more energy. |
| B．There is less leptin in their bodies. |
| C．They have a lower blood sugar. |
| D．Their bodies produce less hormones. |
| A．Appetite Affects our Sleep Quality |
| B．Sleeping in Causes Weight Loss |
| C．Catching up on Sleep Harms Our Body |
| D．Men and Women Sleep Differently |
【推荐2】Part-time jobs for 15 and 16 years olds
Waiter / Waitress A job as a waiter or waitress is a good choice for 16-year-olds. Not only can one earn $9-$12 an hour, but they can also get the tips (小费). Most people that visit a restaurant don’t just have good food. They come here to relax and have a good time. Besides serving food quickly, a young waiter who talks to them politely with a smile on his face will make the diners enjoy their time at the restaurant. |
Work in a library If one is fond of books, working in a library is another suitable choice. Besides the pay is good, it offers a lot of free time when students can actually sit down and finish their homework. So on returning home, they would have time to hang around with friends or just relax. So working in a library is an excellent part-time job for teens, especially for school students. |
Internet jobs There are many ways of making money through online jobs like clicking on advertisements, visiting sites and signing up with them. However, such online jobs don’t pay well. A better Internet job for teens is to complete online surveys. These are quite simple surveys that usually ask one about his/ her opinions and ideas. Many companies use these ideas to make products designed for teenagers. |
1. What does the writer think of the job as a waiter/waitress?
| A．It needs a period of training. |
| B．It pays much more than other jobs. |
| C．It can improve one’s leadership skills. |
| D．Making diners comfortable is part of the job. |
| A．in a restaurant | B．in a library |
| C．on the Internet | D．in an IT company |
| A．The teens have more free time. |
| B．They can pay less to the teens. |
| C．They need advice to make products for teens. |
| D．The teens usually express their true opinions. |
【推荐3】Some festivals around the world
Dia de los Muertos (Mexico)
Beginning at the midnight of October 31 and lasting through November 2, it is a festival when families gather together to remember those loved ones who have died. To honor the deceased, Mexican families prepare private altars (祭坛) in their homes. On top of them they’ll put photos of the dead and their favorite food. They also visit the graves of their beloved ones and place offerings there to pay their respects to the dead.
Holi (India)
Holi, popularly known as “the festival of colors”, is an ancient Hindu festival which signifies the end of winter and the victory of good over evil.
During the festival, people wet each other with water balloons and water guns, then they throw color powder on one another. There are also marching bands, dancing, food and drink, and much laughter. A great number of people are infected by its playful and childlike atmosphere.
La Tomatina (Spain)
As a big food fight, it is possibly the most chaotic (混乱的) festival.
According to records, the festival dates back to a parade in which some naughty teenagers knocked one performer off his stilts (高跷) and caused a fight of throwing vegetables accidentally. It was once banned until 1957 when the locals held a protest (抗议) with a mock funeral. They carried a coffin containing a huge tomato as bands played a funeral march. Finally, in the decades since, La Tomatina has become a popular event which attracts lots of tourists to have fun.
If you happen to join the event, be aware that you squash (压软) the tomato before throwing it. Have a great time but avoid causing any injury.
1. Which festival in China is similar to Dia de los Muertos in purpose?| A．Lantern Festival. | B．Mid-Autumn Festival. | C．Dragon Boat Festival. | D．Qingming Festival. |
| A．Enjoyable but risky. | B．Chaotic but playful. | C．Religious and legendary. |
| D．Worldwide and meaningful | ||
| A．It’s a crazy tomato fight. | B．It usually causes injury. |
| C．It originated from a funeral. | D．It was canceled by the locals in 1957. |
