Question

请认真阅读下面短文，并根据所读内容在文章后表格中的空格里填入一个最恰当的单词。注意:每个空格只填1个单词。

Pretending you're someone else can make you creative

One great irony(讽刺) about our collective fascination with creativity is that we tend to frame it in uncreative ways. That is to say, most of us marry creativity to our concept of self: We are either “creative” people or we aren't，without much of a middle ground.

Pillay, a tech businessman and Harvard professor has spent a good part of his career destroying these ideas. Pillay believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to dismiss the conventional advice that urges you to “believe in yourself”. In fact, you should do the exact opposite: believe you are someone else.

In a recent column for Harvard Business Review, Pillay pointed to a 2016 study showing the impact of stereotypes(刻板印象)on one's behavior. The authors, education psychologists Denis Dumas and Kevin Dunbar, divided their college­student subjects into three categories, instructing the members of one group to think of themselves as “eccentric(古怪的) poets” and the members of another to imagine they were “rigid librarians”(people in the third category, the control group, were left alone for this part). The researchers then presented participants with 10 ordinary objects，including a fork, a carrot, and a pair of pants, and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one. Those who were asked to imagine themselves as “eccentric poets” came up with the widest range of ideas for the objects, while those in the “rigid librarian” group had the fewest. Meanwhile, the researchers found only small differences in students' creativity levels across academic majors—in fact, the physics majors inhabiting(寄生) the personas(伪装的外表) of “eccentric poets” came up with more ideas than the art majors did.

These results, write Dumas and Dunbar, suggest that creativity is not an individual quality, but a “malleable(可塑的) product of context and perspective.” Everyone can be creative, as long as they feel like creative people.

Pillay's work takes this a step further: He argues that identifying yourself with creativity is less powerful than the creative act of imagining you're somebody else. This exercise, which he calls “psychological halloweenism”， refers to the conscious action of inhabiting another persona—an inner costuming of the self. It works because it is an act of “conscious unfocus”， a way of positively stimulating the default mode(默认模式) network, a collection of brain regions that spring into action when you're not focused on a specific task or thought.

Most of us spend too much time worrying about two things: How successful/unsuccessful we are, and how little we're focusing on the task at hand. The former feeds the latter—an unfocused person is an unsuccessful one, we believe. Thus, we force ourselves into quiet areas, buy noise­canceling headphones, and hate ourselves for taking breaks.

What makes Pillay's argument stand out is its healthy, forgiving realism: According to him, most people spend nearly half of their days in a state of “unfocus”. This doesn't make us lazy people—it makes us human. The idea behind psychological halloweenism is: What if we stopped judging ourselves for our mental down time, and instead started using it? Putting this new idea on daydreaming means addressing two problems at once: You're making yourself more creative, and you're giving yourself permission to do something you'd otherwise feel guilty about. Imagining yourself in a new situation, or an entirely new identity, never felt so productive.

Title: Pretending you're someone else can make you creative

Some misleading ideasabout creativity	●Most of us are 1. with the idea that we are either creative or we are not: there doesn't exist a middle ground in between.●2. to popular belief，Pillay's suggestion is that you should believe you are someone else.
Dumas and Dunbar's study	●One group were asked to think of themselves as “eccentric poets”，another “rigid librarians” and a third 3. as the control group.●The former two groups were required to come up with as many different uses as possible for each 4. object. ●The level of students' 5. is not always in direct proportion to the type of academic majors. ●Therefore, creativity is probably a product of context and perspective rather than something 6..
Pillay's further study	●The exercise of “psychological halloweenism” refers to the conscious action of being others by 7. stimulating the default mode network.●Pillay 8. firmly to the idea of imaging you're someone else and advises us not to worry about how successful/unsuccessful we are.
The 9.significance of the exercise	●We should start using it instead of stopping judging ourselves for our mental down time.●We have every right to 10. ourselves for being unfocused because it is not only human but also makes us more creative and productive.

Answer

1. fascinated/impressed

2. Contrary

3. worked/acted/served/functioned

4. given

5. creativity

6. individual/personal

7. positively

8. subscribes

9. realistic/practical

10. forgive

【解析】

本文是一篇说明文，创造性是促进社会进步的重要品质，哈佛大学教授Pillay认为我们要摈弃传统观念，要把自己想象成别人。以此促进人们的创造性品质。

1.考查词性转换。根据第一段第一句“One great irony about our collective fascination with creativity is that we tend to frame it in uncreative ways.”可知关于创造性的具有讽刺性的是我们会用没有创造性的方法来限制创造性。句中使用名词fascination，而表格里需要使用形容词短语be fascinated with the idea that 着迷于这样的想法。所以要填fascinated/impressed。

2.考查固定搭配。根据第二段后两句“Pillay believes that the key to unlocking your creative potential is to dismiss the conventional advice that urges you to “believe in yourself”. In fact, you should do the exact opposite: believe you are someone else.”可知Pillay的观点与传统观点相反的，所以要填Contrary。

3.考查同义转换。根据第三段第二句“The authors, ….and the members of another to imagine they were “rigid librarians”(people in the third category, the control group, were left alone for this part).”可知第三小组的作用是控制，要使用固定搭配worked as / functioned as / acted as / served as，所以要填worked/acted/served/functioned。

4.考查同义转换。根据第三段中“The researchers then presented participants with 10 ordinary objects， including a fork, a carrot, and a pair of pants, and asked them to come up with as many different uses as possible for each one.”可知应该使用given与present 同义替换，所以要填given。

5.考查原词重现。根据第三段最后一句“Meanwhile, the researchers found only small differences in students' creativity levels across academic majors”可知学生的创造性与他们的专业不成比例。所以要填creativity。

6.考查原词重现。根据第四段第一句“These results, write Dumas and Dunbar, suggest that creativity is not an individual quality, but a “malleable(可塑的) product of context and perspective.”可知创造性并不是个体的品质。所以要填individual/personal。

7.考查原词重现。根据第五段最后一句“It works because …. a way of positively stimulating the default mode network, a collection of brain regions that spring into action when you're not focused on a specific task or thought.” 中的“positively”可以我们要积极地刺激。所以要填positively。

8.考查同义转换。根据第五段第一句“Pillay's work takes this a step further: He argues that identifying yourself with creativity is less powerful than the creative act of imagining you're somebody else.”可知Pillay建议我们帮助自己想象成别人，也不要担忧我们会是多么成功。表格里使用subscribe to the idea that….固定搭配，所以要填subscribes。

9.考查总结概括。根据文章最后一段可知本段讲述的是这个实验的现实意义。所以要填realistic/practical。

10.考查固定搭配和同义替换。根据文章倒数第二句“You're making yourself more creative, and you're giving yourself permission to do something you'd otherwise feel guilty about”可知我们让自己更有创造性，会减少犯罪感，你才会原谅自己，使用forgive sb for sth这个搭配。所以要填forgive。