Y (for YES ) if
the statement agrees with the information given in the passage;
N (for NO) if the statement
contradicts the information given in the passage; NG (for NOT
GIVEN) if the information is not given in the
passage. For questions 8-10, complete the sentences with the information
given in the passage.
How to Get a Great
Idea The guests had arrived, and the wine was warm. Once
again, I’d forgotten to refrigerate it. "Don’t worry." a friend said, "I can
chill it for you right away." Five minutes later she emerged
from the kitchen with the wine perfectly cooled. Asked to reveal her secret, she
said, "Easy. I poured the wine in a plastic bag and then dipped it in ice water.
After a few minutes the wine was cold. The hard part was getting it back into
bottle. I couldn’t find a funnel (漏斗), so I made a cone with wax
paper." My guests applauded. "How wonderful if we could all be
that clever," one remarked. A decade of research has convinced
me we can. What separates the average person from Edison, Picasso or even
Shakespeare isn’t creative capacity--it’s the ability to use that capacity by
encouraging creative impulses and then acting upon them. Most of us seldom
achieve our creative potential. I think I know why, and I can help unlock the
reservoir of ideas hiding within every one of us. One puzzle
I’ve watched students deal with is retrieving a Ping-Pong ball that has fallen
to the bottom of sealed, vertical drainpipe. The tools that they can use are
either too short to reach the ball or too wide to fit into the pipe, which is
also too narrow to reach into by hand. At last some students make the
connection: drainpipe＝water＝floating. They pour water down the hole, and the
ball floats to the top. This and many other experiments suggest
concrete ways of increasing creativity in all of us. Here are the best
techniques. Capture the fleeting A good idea is like a
rabbit. It runs by so fast that sometimes you see only its ears or tail. To
capture it, you must be ready. Creative people are always ready to act, and that
may be the only difference between us and them. Poet Lowell
wrote of the urgency with which she captured new ideas, "Whatever I am doing, I
lay it aside and attend to the arriving poem," she wrote. Like many other
writers, Lowell sought paper and pencil when she saw a good idea coming. I enter
new ideas into a pocket computer. Anything---even a napkin---will do.
In a letter to a friend in 1821, Ludwig van Beethoven talked about bow he
thought of a beautiful tune while dozing in carriage. "But scarcely did I awake
when away flew the tune," he wrote, "and I could not recall any part of it."
Fortunately for Beethoven and for us--the next day in the same carriage, the
tune came back to him, and this time he captured it in writing.
When a good idea comes your way, write it down on your arm if necessary.
Not every idea will have value, of course. The point is to capture first and
evaluate them later. Daydream Surrealist Dali used to
lie on a sofa, holding a spoon. Just as he began to fall asleep, Dali would drop
the spoon onto a plate on the floor. The sound shocked him awake, and he would
immediately sketch the images he had seen in his mind in that fertile world of
semi-sleep. Everyone experiences this strange state, and
everyone can take advantage of it. Try Dali’s trick, or just allow yourself to
daydream. For many, the "three b’s" bed, bath and bus--are productive, there,
and anywhere else you can be with your thoughts undisturbed, you’ll find that
ideas emerging freely. Seek challenges When you’re
stuck behind a locked door, every behavior that’s ever gotten you free turns up
quickly: you may push or pull on the knob, bang the door--even shout for help.
Scientists call the rehappening of old behaviors in a challenging situation
resurgence. The more behaviors that reappear, the greater the number of possible
interconnections, and the more likely that new ideas will occur.
Try inviting friends and business associations from different areas of
your life to a party. Bring people of two or three generations together. This
will get you thinking in new ways. Edwin Land, one of America’s
most prolific inventors, said that the idea that led to his invention of the
Polaroid camera came from his three-year-old daughter. On a visit to Santa Fe in
1943, she asked why she couldn’t see the picture he had just taken. During the
next hour, as Land walked around Santa Fe, all he had learned about chemistry
came together, with amazing results. Said Land, "The camera and the film became
clear to me. In my mind they were so real that I spent several flours describing
them." Put new and crazy items like kid’s toys on your desk.
Turn pictures upside down or sideways. The more detersive the stimulations we
receive, the more rapidly the mind produces new ideas. Expand your
world Many discoveries in sciences, engineering and the arts
mix ideas from different fields. Consider "the Two-String problem". Two widely
separated strings hang from a ceiling. Even though you can’t reach both at once,
is it possible to tie their ends together, using only a pair of
pliers One college student found the solution almost
immediately. He tied the pliers to one string and set it in motion like pendulum
(钟摆). As it swung back and forth, he walked quickly to the other string and drew
it as far forward as it would reach. Then he caught the swinging string when it
passed near him and tied the two ends. Asked how he had solved
the problem, the student explained he had just come from a physics class on
pendulum motion. What he had learned in one context transferred to a completely
different one. This principle works outside the lab as well. To
enhance your creativity, learn something new. If you’re banker, take up tap
dancing. If you’re a nurse, try a course in mythology. Read a book on a subject
you know little about. Change your daily newspaper. The new will interconnect
with the old in novel and potentially fascinating ways. Becoming more creative
is really just a matter of paying attention to that endless flow of ideas you
produce, and learning to capture and act upon the new that’s within you. Learn to be more creative is just a matter of focusing on the endless flow of ideas you produce, and learning to ______ the new that’s within you.