TheMacArthurFoundationlatelastmonthannounceditslatestcr...

问题详情：

The MacArthur Foundation late last month announced its latest crop of “genius grants”, and once again you thought maybe, just maybe, this was your year.

And why not? These days, we’re all geniuses. We might be “marketing geniuses” or “cooking geniuses” or “TV geniuses”. We have so weakened “genius” that it’s fast joining the company of “natural” and “mindful” (留心), words left inactive through overuse and misuse.

Admittedly, the word is tough to nail down. Sometimes we assume genius equivalent to raw intelligence. But many of humanity’s greatest breakthroughs were achieved by those with only modest IQs.

Sometimes we think of the genius as someone extremely knowledgeable, but that definition also falls short. During Albert Einstein’s time, other scientists knew more physics than Einstein did, but history doesn’t remember them. That’s because they didn’t make use of that knowledge the way Einstein did. They weren’t able to, as he put it, “regard old questions from a new angle”.

The genius is not a know-it-all but a see-it-all, someone who, working with the material available to all of us, is able to make surprising and useful connections. True genius involves not merely an extra advance, but a conceptual leap. As philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put it: Talent hits the target no one else can hit; genius hits the target no one else can see.

We’ve lost sight of this truth, and too often grant the title of genius on talented people hitting visible targets. A good example is the much-boasted announcement earlier this year that scientists had, for the first time, recorded the sound of two black holes bumping, a billion light-years away. It was a remarkable discovery, no doubt, but it did not represent a dramatic shift in how we understand the universe. It merely confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity.

As Plato observed, “What is honored in a country is cultivated there.” What do we honor? Digital technology, and the convenience it represents, so naturally we get a Steve Jobs or a Mark Zuckerberg as our “geniuses”, which, in point of fact, they aren’t.

The iPhone and Facebook are wonderful inventions. In many ways, they make our lives a bit easier, a bit more convenient. If anything, though, a true genius makes our lives more difficult, more unsettled. William Shakespeare’s words provide more anxiety than relief, and the world felt a bit more secure before Charles Darwin came along. Zuckerberg and Jobs may have changed our world, but they haven’t yet changed our worldview.

We need to recover genius, and a good place to start is by putting the brakes on Genius Flooding.

63. The key factor that sets geniuses and talents apart is that __________.

A. geniuses have a larger range of knowledge B. geniuses have access to far more resources

C. geniuses can see visible targets D. geniuses approach things differently

64. The reasons why people naturally regard Steve Jobs & Mark Zuckerberg as geniuses include all the following EXCEPT that __________.

A. their achievements bring people convenience

B. they have extraordinary intelligence

C. they are native to the country where digital technology is highly valued

D. they satisfy people’s needs in the age of high technology

65. What can we infer from the passage?

A. We should stop the improper use of “natural” and “mindful”.

B. The first recording of two black holes bumping each other is a genius breakthrough.

C. Charles Darwin is hardly a genius.

D. More geniuses remain to be found in our life.

66. What is the best title for the passage?

A. Get a new word, genius. B. Learn from a new model, genius.

C. Join in a new group, genius. D. Make a new friend, genius.

【回答】

DBAA

知识点：*经济文化类阅读

题型：阅读理解