1 . In 1970s, a psychologist named J. P. Guilford conducted a famous study of creativity known as the nine-dot puzzle (九点谜题). He challenged research subjects to connect all nine dots using just four straight lines without lifting their pencils from the page. All the participants limited the possible solutions to those within the imaginary square. Only 20 percent managed to break out of the confinement (束缚) and continue their lines in the white space surrounding the dots.
The fact that 80 percent of the participants were effectively blinded by the boundaries of the square led Guilford to jump to the sweeping conclusion that creativity requires you to go outside the box. The idea went viral. Overnight, it seemed that creativity experts everywhere were teaching managers how to think outside the box. The concept enjoyed such strong popularity that no one bothered to check the facts. No one, that is, before two different research teams-Clarke Burnham with Kenneth Davis, and Joseph Alba with Robert Weisberg-ran another experiment.
Both teams followed the same way of dividing participants into two groups. The first group was given the same instructions as the participants in Guilford’s experiment. The second group was told that the solution required the lines to be drawn outside the imaginary box. Guess what? Only 25 percent solved the puzzle. In statistical terms, this 5 percent improvement is insignificant as this could be called sampling error.
Let’s look a little more closely at the surprising result. Solving this problem requires people to literally think outside the box. Yet participants’ performance was not improved even when they were given specific instructions to do so. That is, direct and clear instructions to think outside the box did not help. That this advice is useless should effectively have killed off the much widely spread — and therefore, much more dangerous — metaphor (比喻) that out-of-the-box thinking boosts creativity. After all, with one simple yet brilliant experiment, researchers had proven that the conceptual link between thinking outside the box and creativity was a misunderstanding.
1. What did the nine-dot puzzle study focus on?| A．Visual perception. |
| B．Thinking patterns. |
| C．Practical experience. |
| D．Theoretical knowledge. |
| A．To test the catchy concept. |
| B．To contradict the initial idea. |
| C．To collect supporting evidence |
| D．To identify the underlying logic. |
| A．Groundless. | B．Inspiring. | C．Fruitless. | D．Revealing. |
| A．Puzzle Solving: A Key To Creativity |
| B．Thinking Outside the Box: A Misguided Idea |
| C．Nine-Dot Puzzle: A Magic Test |
| D．Creative Thinking: We Fell For The Trap |
It was a day just like every other day. I woke up early in the morning and went to run on Mount Gracious with my dog, Bubbles. As I ran up the mountain, with my dog following close behind, I felt energetic and refreshed. Running in a natural environment never failed to make me feel alive. When I reached the top, I drank some water and enjoyed the beautiful sunrise. This scene always took my breath away, no matter how many times I had seen it.
Having rested enough, Bubbles and I made our way back down the mountain. As we were running downhill, I saw an unfamiliar path and decided to explore the area. The path was full of rocks. It was not easy to walk.
Suddenly, I slipped on a muddy patch, rolling down five meters before I managed to grab hold of an exposed root of a huge tree. I was safe for now. However, I was seriously injured. My knees were badly hurt. My right foot was also dislocated (脱臼). I knew for sure I would be unable to make my way up or down the mountain without help. I called out to Bubbles and he barked loudly from above. It seemed like he understood that I needed help. He looked down at me pitifully before disappearing from sight.
As night fell, panic (恐慌) set in and scary thoughts went through my mind. There were many things that I had got to do. I couldn't die! This would not have happened if I had stuck to my usual path.
I was losing hope when I heard barking. It was Bubbles. I rubbed my eyes as I struggled to keep awake. But there was silence. Who could it be? Was I hallucinating (产生幻觉)? Then I heard some voices and more barking. Yes. Help was near, I knew. I could count on my dog to get help.
注意：
1．续写词数应为150左右；
2．请按如下格式在答题卡的相应位置作答。
Soon, I heard my parents calling my name.
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Later, my parents told me what Bubbles had done to get help.
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3 . The Ancient Chinese Game of Go
Weiqi, known in English as Go, is one of the four skills that an ancient Chinese intellectual (知识分子) could possess. It has a history of well over 4,000 years in China and remains popular. Culturally, this activity is really “more than just a game”.
History books have recorded quite a number of ardent Go fans from each dynasty. Today, there are still many in China, Japan and South Korea. Wu Yulin, a professional, explains its attraction, “In Go, you can learn the dialectics (辩证法) and military stratagems.
In fact, all of our minds can benefit from playing Go, which officially has the capacity to make you smarter. Research has shown that children who play Go have the potential for greater intelligence.
Today, the number of Go fans in China is at 36 million and rising. Some universities like Beijing University are even offering courses in Go to undergraduates.
| A．There’s always loss and gain. |
| B．It’s a war between equal powers. |
| C．That is because it motivates both the right and left sides of the brain. |
| D．You can also cultivate your character and improve your intelligence. |
| E．But more often, ancient Chinese played Go to cultivate their mind and character. |
| F．The influence of Go on Chinese society is quite evident in literature works. |
| G．Many people also love this ancient game for the Chinese philosophy it contains. |
4 . With the help of new devices on mice, scientists are using light to switch nerve cells on and off in mice’s brains to explore the animals’ social behavior, a new study shows.
The new devices rely on optogenetics(光遗传学), a technique in which researchers use bursts of light to stimulate or control the brain nerve cells, often using tailored viruses to genetically correct cells so they respond to light. Scientists have applied optogenetics to explore neural(神经的) circuits in mice and other lab animals to come to a conclusion on how they might work in humans. Optogenetic devices often feed light to neurons via fiber-optic cables, but such things can influence natural behaviors and social interactions. While scientists recently developed implantable(可植入的) wireless optogenetic devices, these depend on relatively simple remote controls or limited sets of preprogrammed instructions.
These new fully implantable optogenetic devices can enable more complex research. Specifically, the researchers can adjust each device’s programming during the course of experiment. “So you can target what an animal does in a much more complex way,” says Genia Kozorovitskiy, a researcher at Northwestern University.
These devices are battery-free, wirelessly powered by the same high-frequency radio waves used to remotely control the intensity, duration and timing of the light pulses. The devices also allow scientists to control four different neural circuits in an animal simultaneously, thanks to LEDs that give out four colors——blue, green, yellow and red——instead of just one.
The widely available wireless technology used in this work, the same now used in contactless payment with credit cards, could allow broad adoption across the neuroscience community “without extensive specialized hardware”, says Philipp Gutruf at the University of Arizona. “That means that we might see these devices in many labs in the near future, enabling new discoveries.”
1. What’s scientists’ purpose of using optogenetics?| A．To control humans’ brain nerve cells. |
| B．To account for humans’ social interactions. |
| C．To figure out how neural circuits affect humans. |
| D．To correct tailored viruses entering the human bodies. |
| A．Once in a while. | B．At the same time. |
| C．By ones and twos. | D．On a regular basis. |
| A．The function of wireless technology. |
| B．The promising future of the devices. |
| C．The novel application of the devices. |
| D．The development of wireless technology. |
| A．Scientists Can Kill Mice with Light |
| B．Scientists Control Humans’ Social Interactions |
| C．Scientists Control Social Behavior of Mice with New Devices |
| D．Scientists Can Record Human Neural Circuits with New Devices |
5 . It may not be rocket science, but researchers have found aerospace engineers and neurosurgeons (神经外科医生) are not necessarily brighter than the general population.
Researchers examined data from an international group of 329 aerospace engineers and 72 brain surgeons who completed 12 tasks online using the Great British Intelligence Test.
The tasks examined various aspects of cognition (认知), including planning and reasoning, working memory, attention, and emotion processing abilities. The researchers then compared the results against those previously gathered from more than 18,000 members of the British public.
The findings, which were recently published, reveal that only neurosurgeons showed a significant difference, with quicker problem-solving speed but slower memory recall compared with the general population. “The difference in problem-solving speed exhibited by neurosurgeons might arise from the fast-paced nature of neurosurgery, which attracts those with a pre-existing talent for rapid processing, or it could be, though less likely, a product of training for rapid decision-making in time-critical situations,” the researchers noted.
The researchers said the study was, in part, carried out to lay to rest the question of whether one of the professions had the intellectual upper hand-a tension made famous by a comedy show in which a confident neurosurgeon is slapped down by an aerospace expert who says, “Brain surgery... it’s not exactly rocket science, is it?”
However, the team found few differences between the cognitive abilities of aerospace engineers and neuroscientists, although the results suggest the former had higher scores for attention and mental control—such as turning objects in one’s head—while neurosurgeons showed higher scores in semantic (语义的) problem solving—such as definitions of rare words.
“Essentially what we think it shows is that everyone has a range of skills, some people are better at some things and other people are better at other things, and it is very difficult to be better in everything across the board,” said Aswin Chari, an author of the study.
1. What is paragraph 3 mainly about?| A．The research subjects. | B．The research method. |
| C．The research aspects. | D．The research background. |
| A．Fast development of neurosurgery. | B．Talent of neurosurgeons. |
| C．Training for rapid decision-making. | D．Nature of problem solving. |
| A．attempted to answer the question asked by the aerospace expert in the show |
| B．were eager to solve the conflicts between neurosurgeons and aerospace engineers |
| C．intended to settle the argument over the intellectual superiority of the two professions |
| D．wanted to find out which of the two professions was more intellectually demanding |
| A．To inform people of the results of a cognitive study. |
| B．To encourage people to be confident in themselves. |
| C．To reduce prejudice against certain professions. |
| D．To correct misunderstandings about intelligence. |
