Passage 3 Directions In the following article, some sentences have been removed. Choose the most suitable one from the choices listed from A to H to fit into each of the numbered gaps. There is ONE which does not fit in any of the gaps. How to be creative Creativity can seem like magic. We look at people like Steve Jobs and Bob Dylan, and we conclude that they must possess supernatural powers denied to mere mortals like us, gifts that allow them to imagine what has never existed before. They are “creative types”. We’re not. 1 Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed ( 赐予 ) b the angles. It’s a sill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it. New research is shedding light on what allows people to develop world-changing products and to solve the toughest problems. A surprisingly concrete set of lessons has emerged about what creativity is and how to spark it in ourselves and our work. 2 The latest research suggests that this assumption is false. It turns out that we use “creativity” as a catchall ( 无所不包的 ) term for a variety of cognitive tools, each of which applies to particular sorts of problems and is coaxed to action in a particular way. The new research also suggests how best to approach the thorniest problems. We tend to assume that experts are the creative geniuses in their own fields. But big breakthroughs often depend on the naïve daring of outsiders. For prompting creativity, few things are as important as time devoted to cross-pollination ( 异花授粉 ) with fields outside our areas of expertise. Let’s start with the hardest problems, those challenges that at first blush seem impossible. Such problems are typically solved (if they are solved at all) in a moment of insight. Scientists have begun studying how insight occurs. 3 For instance, exposing subjects to a short, humorous video – the scientists use a clip of Robin Williams doing stand-up --- boosts the average success rate by about 20 percent. Alcohol also works. Earlier this year, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago compared performance on insight puzzles between sober and intoxicated students. The scientists gave the subjects a battery of word problems known as remote associates, in which people have to find one additional word that goes with a triad of words. Here’s a sample problem: Pine Crab Sauce. In this case, the answer is “apple”. (The compound words are pineapple, crab apple, and apple sauce.) Drunk students solved nearly 30 percent more of these word problems than their sober peers. 4 The answer involves the surprising advantage of not paying attention. Although we live in an age that worships focus- we are always forcing ourselves to cone this approach can inhibit the imagination, We might be focused, but we're probably focused on the wrong answer. And this is why relaxation helps: It isn't until we're soothed in the shower or distracted by the stand-up comic that we're able to tum the spotlight of attention inward, eavesdropping on all those random associations unfolding in the far reaches of the brain's right hemisphere. When we need an insight, those associations are en the source of the answer. This research also explains why so many major breakthroughs happen in the unlikeliest of places, whether it's Archimedes in the bathtub or the physicist Richard Feynman scribbling equations in a strip club, as he was known to do. It reveals the wisdom of Google putting ping-pong tables in the lobby and confirms the practical benefits of daydreaming. As Einstein once declared, "Creativity is the residue 残留物 ) of time wasted.” Of course, not every creative challenge requires an epiphany ( 顿悟 ); a relaxing shower won't solve every problem. Sometimes, we just need to keep on working, resisting the temptation of a beer-fueled nap. There is nothing fun about this kind of creativity, which consists mostly of sweat and failure. It's the red pen on the page and the discarded sketch, the trashed prototype and the failed first draft. Nietzsche referred to this as the "rejecting process," noting that while creators like to brag about their big epiphanies, their everyday reality was much less romantic. "All great artists and thinkers are great workers, " he wrote. But this raises an obvious question: If different kinds of creative problems benefit from different kinds of creative thinking how can we ensure that we're thinking in the right way at the right time? When should we daydream and go for a relaxing stroll, and when should we keep on sketching and toying with possibilities? 5 Researchers call these intuitions "feelings of knowing”, and they occur when we suspect that we can find the answer, if only we keep on thinking. Numerous studies have demonstrated that, when it comes to problems that don t require insights, the mind is remarkably adept ( 擅长的 ) at assessing the likelihood that a problem can be solve --- knowing whether we’re getting "warmer" or not, without knowing the solution. This ability to calculate progress is an important part of the creative process. When we don't feel that were getting closer to the answer – we’ve hit the wall, so to speak-we probably need an insight. If there is no feeling of knowing, the most productive thing we can do is forget about work for a while. But when those feelings of knowing are telling us that we're getting close, we need to keep on struggling. 6 They're both just a matter of getting those answers out Another kind of creative problem, though, is when you don't have the right kind of raw material kicking around in your head. If you're trying to be more creative, one of the most important things you can do is increase the volume and diversity of the information to which you are exposed. Steve Jobs famously declared that “creativity is just connecting things.” Although we think of inventors as dreaming up breakthroughs out of thin air, Mr. Jobs was pointing out that even the most far-fetched concepts are usually just new combinations of stuff that already exists. Under Mr. Jobs’ leadership, for instance, Apple didn’t invent MP3 players or tablet computers --- the company just made them better, adding design features that were new to the product category. Creativity is a spark. It can be excruciating ( 令人难以忍受的 ) when we’re rubbing two rocks together and getting nothing. And it can be intensely satisfying when the flame catches and a new idea sweeps around the world. For the first time in human history, it’s becoming possible to see how to throw off more sparks and how to make sure that more of them catch fire. And yet, we must also be honest: The creative process will never be easy, no matter how much we learn about it. Our inventions will always be shadowed by uncertainty, by the serendipity of brain cells making a new connection. Every creative story is different. 7 (1,145 words) 供选择项: A The good news is that the human mind has a surprising natural ability to assess the kind of creativity we need. B Yet every creative story is the same: There was nothing, now there is something --- it’s almost like magic. C It’s this ability to attack problems as a beginner, to let go of all preconceptions, and fear of failure, that’s the key to creativity. D But creativity is not magic, and there’s no such thing as a creative type. E What explains the creative benefits of relaxation and booze? F Imagination was once thought to be a single thing, separate from other kinds of cognition. G Both moment-of-insight problems and nose-to-the-grindstone problems assume that we have the answers to the creative problems we’re trying to solve somewhere in our heads. H Interestingly, they have found that certain factors make people much more likely to have an insight, better able to detect the answer.