SAT阅读不间断练习：Fifty years ago

>>SAT阅读练习：SAT阅读不间断练习：Fifty years ago

>>SAT考试课程辅导

Fifty years ago, Sarnoff Mednick defined the processof creative thinking as "the forming of associativeelements into new combinations which either meetspecific requirements or are in some way useful. The more mutually remote the elements of the newcombination, the more creative the process or solution." Mednick argued that creativepeople have flat associative hierarchies: they are better able to access distant, remoteassociations. For example, when given the concept "table," Mednick predicted that creativepeople would be more likely to retrieve more remote associations such as "leg" or "food." Incontrast, Mednick argued that less creative thinkers have a steep associative hierarchy, in which words with a higher associative strength (e.g., chair) would be more likely to enter their minds:

One tool that has been used recently to look at creative cognition is Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), an objective scoring method where you can derive a measure of semantic distance. With LSA, you can quantify the similarity between words or texts based on statisticalanalyses of the responses of a large population.

Using this technique, Ranjani Prabhakaran, Adam Green, and Jeremy Gray found that "thinslices" of verbal behavior (single-word utterances) predicted creative cognition. In their "verbgeneration" task, a noun was presented every few seconds, and the participant was instructedto say the first verb that came to mind in response to the noun. The researchers analyzed thesemantic distance of the responses using LSA.

They found that the greater the semantic distance of the noun-verb pairs, the higher the levelsof creative cognition, story-writing ability, openness to experience, and creativeachievement. Interestingly, they also found a relationship between semantic distance andtraditional measures of "convergent thinking," such as IQ and working memory. Thissuggests that creative thinking doesn't just involve combining distant associations, but also requires consciously accessing the associations.

The underlined word "requires" most nearly means _____

A.necessitates.

B.forces.

C.authorizes.

D.affirms.

答案：A

解析：

Choice A is the best answer. The author states that in addition to involving the combination of distantly related ideas, creative thinking requires consciously accessing those ideas. In this context, "requires" means "necessitates," or makes necessary. The author's point is that it is necessary for a creative thinker to deliberately think of particular things.

SAT阅读每日一练推荐词汇

combination[.kɔmbi'neiʃən]n. 结合，联合，联合体

steep[sti:p]adj. 陡峭的，险峻的，(价格)过高的

analysis[ə'næləsis]n. 分析，解析联想记忆

contrast['kɔntræst,kən'træst]n. 差别，对比，对照物v. 对比，成对照

traditional[trə'diʃənəl]adj. 传统的

hierarchy['haiərɑ:ki]n. 等级制度，层级[计]，统治集团

similarity[.simi'læriti]n. 相似，类似

specific[spi'sifik]adj. 特殊的，明确的，具有特效的

statistical[stə'tistikəl]adj. 统计的，统计学的

particular[pə'tikjulə]adj. 特殊的，特别的，特定的，挑剔的

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