Directions: You are expected to study this section in class. Don’t preview.

Word Pretest

For each italicized word or expression, choose the best meaning below.

1. I assume you've all read the text carefully. Now I'll ask you some questions about its content.
A. hope          B. suppose        C. know
2. The old general has started to write his memoirs.
A. autobiography   B. letters          C. books
3. Being highly perceptive, she is very likely to develop into a successful writer.
A. quick to notice and understand things
B. quick to collect materials
C. quick to make friends with others
4. He has been occupied with collecting stamps for many years.
A. successful in    B. absorbed in     C. productive in
5. I had a weary day yesterday; I couldn't even move my legs by the time I went back home.
A. an exhausting   B. an unusual      C. a fascinating
6. Christians believe that the mountains and the oceans are among the mighty works of God.
A. usual          B. powerful       C. weak
7. When the doors were flung open, a crowd surged in.
A. entered in a mass
B. entered in a single line
C. entered one by one
8. Take it easy! You won't fall off this ladder as it is quite stable.
A. steady         B. new           C. old  

Text A
Where Do Those Bright Ideas Come From?

　　

There are few experiences quite so satisfactory as getting a good idea. You've  had a problem, you've thought about it till you were tired, forgotten it and perhapsslept on it, and then flash! When you weren't thinking about it suddenly the answer  has come to you, as a gift from the gods. You're pleased with it, and feel good. It ay not be right, but at least you can try it out. Of course all ideas don't come like that, but the interesting thing is that so many do, particularly the most important ones. They burst into the mind, glowing with the heat of creation. How they do it is a mystery. But they must have come from somewhere. For the moment let us assume that they come from the "unconscious." to This is reasonable, for the psychologists use this term to describe mental processes which are unknown to the subject, and creative thought depends on what was unknown becoming known.
We have all experienced this sudden arrival of a happy idea, but it is, easiest to examine it in the great creative figures, many of whom experienced it in an intensified form and have written it down in their memoirs and letters. One can draw examples from genius in any field, from religion, philosophy, and literature to art and music, even in mathematics, science, and technical invention, though these are often thought to depend only on logic and experiment. It seems that all truly creative activities depends in some degree on these signals from the unconscious, and more highly perceptive the person, the sharper and more dramatic the signals become.
Let's see the example of Richard Wagner composing the prelude to "Rhinegold." Wagner said that he had been occupied with the general idea of the   "Ring" for several years, and for many weary months had been struggling to make a   start with the actual composition. On September 4, 1863, he reached Spezia sick, went to a hotel, could not sleep for noise without and fever within, took a long walk   the next day, and in the afternoon flung himself on a couch intending to sleep. And   then at last the miracle happened for which his unconscious mind had been crying out for so many months. Falling into a sleeplike condition, he suddenly felt as though he were sinking in a mighty flood of water, and the rush and roar soon took musical shape within his brain. He recognized that the orchestral prelude to the "Rhinegold," which for a long time he must have carried about within him, yet had never been able to put it into form, had at last taken its shape within him.
In this example, the conscious mind at the moment of creation knew nothing of   the actual processes by which the solution was found. As a contrast we may take a famous story: the discovery by Henri Poincare, the great French mathematician, of a    new mathematical method called the Fuchsian functions. For here we see the conscious mind, in a person of highest ability, actually watching the unconscious at    work. For two weeks Poincare had been attempting to prove that there could not be    any function similar to what he had since called the Fuchsian functions. Every day he sat down at his table and spent an hour or two trying a great number of combinations, and he arrived at no result. One night he took some black coffee, contrary to his usual habit, and was unable to sleep. A lot of ideas kept surging in his head; he could almost feel them pushing against one another, until two of them united, so to speak, to form a stable combination. When morning came, he had established the existence of one class of Fuchsian functions. He had only to prove the results, which took only a few hours.
While the Wagner story shows the sudden explosion of a new conception into  consciousness, in this one we see the conscious mind. Observing the new combinations being formed in the unconscious. A third type of creative experience is exemplified by the dreams which came to Descartes at the age of twenty-three and determined the path he was to follow for the rest of his life. Descartes tells how he had unsuccessfully searched for certainty, first in the world of books, and then in the world of men, and how in a dream on November 10, 1619, he made the significant discovery that he could only find certainty in his own thoughts, cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I exist). This dream filled him with intense religious enthusiasm. Freud classified this dream as one of those whose content is very close to conscious thought.
Wagner's, Poincare's, and Descartes' experiences are representative of countless    others in every field of culture. The unconscious is certainly the source of instinctive    activity and therefore sometimes in conflict with the demands of reason, as Freud  emphasized. But in creative thought the unconscious is responsible, not for conflict,    but for the production of new organized forms from relatively disorganized elements.

                     Total words: 845
Total reading time:      minutes     seconds   
             
The text is based on Values and Voice by Betty Renshow, Anne Mills King and    Sandra Kurtinitis. New York, 1986.

◆Reading Skill   Outlining

Write an outline of the text in Section A. Certain items have been provided as a   clue to the structure.

Title.
Main Idea:
I.  Wagner: A sudden explosion of a new conception into consciousness.
Ⅱ
Ⅲ

◆Reading Comprehension
Circle the letter of the best answer.

1. The sentence "all ideas don't come like that" in paragraph 2 means                .
A. not all ideas come like that
B. no ideas come like that
C. not many ideas come like that
2. The reason the author chose Wagner, Poincare and Descartes as his examples is that         .
A. they were known by everybody
B. they were the only creative people
C. they represented three types of creation
3. Before Wagner actually composed the prelude to "Rhinegold," he                 .
A. had thought about it and had tried very hard to start composing it for a long time
B. had not thought about it at all as he was busy writing another piece of music
C. was sick because he had worked too hard on "Rhinegold"
4. The sentence "He could not sleep for noise without and fever within" in paragraph 4 means "He could not sleep because         .
A. it was noisy outside and he had a fever
B. it was quiet inside the hotel and he had a fever
C. the hotel was so noisy that he became very excited
5. The following statements are all true except               .
A. Wagner composed the prelude to "Rhinegold" in a dozing state.
B. Poincare discovered the Fuchsian functions when he was unable to sleep.
C. Descartes made his discovery "I think, therefore I exist" consciously.
6. According to the author, the unconscious is responsible for                     .
A. conflict with reason only
B. the demands of reason
C. the creation of new organized forms of chaotic elements

Vocabulary Building

①Word Match
Match the following words with their definitions within each group of five words.

glow             serve as example
instinctive             give out heat or light
exemplify           (of ideas, behaviors) natural, not based on learning or thinking
funnel                    a short piece of music that introduces a large musical work
prelude                  a wide-mouthed tube used for pouring liquids into a narrow-       
applaud              come out
emerge              praise by striking hands together
attend to             direct one's interest and effort to
potential             a sudden wish to do something
impulse               possibility for being developed
doze                judge the value or degree of
evaluate              sleep lightly
resurgence            unable to go
stuck                describe roughly
sketch              return to power, life and activity

② Use of English
Rewrite each sentence so that its meaning remains unchanged, using the words on the left together with the appropriate form of the verb MAKE.

1. PEACE    The Austrians ended hostilities with Napoleon.
The Austrians...

2. OUT      They couldn't understand what the enemy were trying to say.
They couldn't...

3. HAIR STAND ON END   Seeing the enemy's guns facing him terrified him.
Seeing the enemy's guns facing him...

4. THINGS WORSE    The onset of winter worsened the situation for the troops.
The onset of winter...

5. MOST OF      While they were on leave the sailors exploited their freedom fully.
While they were on leave...

6. NO SECRET    I don't conceal my loathing for war.
I.

③Stems
Study the following stems and their meanings. List some more examples in the space provided

clos/clud/clus  1.           2.           3.           4:                       
cor/cord/cour  1.           2.           3.           4:                       

Read each of the following sentences, and write down the meaning of the italicized word in the space provided.

1. He did not act in accordance with the orders that were given to him.
accordance:

2. The secret has been disclosed to the public, so everybody knows about it now.
disclose:

3. A calendar year is from January 1 to December 31 inclusive.
inclusive:

4. She finished her apple and threw the core away.
core:

5. The garden is enclosed by a fence.
enclose:
6. They concluded the agreement in a friendly manner.
conclude:

7. From the cheers and shouts of encouragement I gathered that he was winning the race.
encouragement:

8. He had no bookcase, so he had to put all his books in his closet.
closet:

④Antonyms
Circle one word in each of the following groups that is the antonym of the other three.

1. retrieve             recover           regain         lose
2. vertical             upright           horizontal      erect
3. prolific             fertile            sterile         fruitful
4. novel               original           new          old
5. diverse              identical          different      various

◆Cloze
Fill in each blank with a word given below. Change the form of the word if necessary..

      spend       work        computers      name         play
after        manage      parents         feel          trade

When  17-year-old Ben Snow started at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last fall, his computer science professors were surprised to see his         on their class lists. They were used to seeing it on a national computer network which is          by the Department of Defense. From ages 15 to 17, Snow             at the University of California on weekends and           school, managing the connection to the network. Denise Gardner, co-director of a computer center, says, "People comfortable with the technology of their childhood. For our         , it was the automobile. For us, it was television. But for our kids, it's          "Usually kids start around age 11 by          computer games and then sign up for public school computer classes to find out how the games work. They start          all their free time at the computers. Lots of kids          part-time work for the use of a computer.