考研英语阅读理解命题思路透析和真题揭秘(39)

1994年Passage 5

　　Discoveries in science and technology are thought by "untaught minds" to come in blinding flashes or as the result of dramatic accidents. Sir Alexander Fleming did not, as legend would have it, look at the mold (霉) on a piece of cheese and get the idea for penicillin there and then. He experimented with antibacterial substances for nine years before he made his discovery. Inventions and innovations almost always come out of laborious trial and error. Innovation is like soccer; even the best players miss the goal and have their shots blocked much more frequently than they score.

　　The point is that the players who score most are the ones who take most shots at the goal-and so it goes with innovation in any field of activity. The prime difference between innovation and others is one of approach. Everybody gets ideas, but innovators work consciously on theirs, and they follow them through until they prove practicable or otherwise. What ordinary people see as fanciful abstractions, professional innovators see as solid possibilities.

　　"Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there's no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done," wrote Rudolph Flexh, a language authority, this accounts for our reaction to seemingly simple innovations like plastic garbage bags and suitcases on wheels that make life more convenient : "How come nobody thought of that before?" The creative approach begins with the proposition that nothing is as it appears. Innovators will not accept that there is only one way to do anything. Faced with getting from A to B, the average person will automatically set out on the best-known and apparently simplest route. The innovator will search for alternate courses, which may prove easier in the long run and are bound to be more interesting and challenging even if they lead to dead ends.

Highly creative individuals really do march to a different drummer.

70. The phrase "march to a different drummer" (the last line of the passage) suggests that highly creative individuals are__.
[A] diligent in pursuing their goals
[B] reluctant to follow common ways of doing things
[C] devoted to the progress of science
[D] concerned about the advance of society

[答案] B

[解题思路]

　　题干的词组来自文章最后一句"Highly creative individuals really do march to a different drummer"，这句话是对全文的精确总结，也是对第四段的承接。第四段的最后一句话谈到"The innovator will search for alternate courses, which may prove easier in the long run and are bound to be more interesting and challenging even if they lead to dead ends"（创新者则会探寻另外不同的道路，而这样的道路将会最终被证实更简单、也一定更有趣、更富挑战性，即使它们通向绝境），也就是说，innovators即那些highly creative individuals都不愿意循规蹈矩，而更愿意开拓新的方法，可见B选项为正确答案。文章最后一句话的意思是"极富创造性的人的确是打着不同的鼓点前进的"。

[题目译文]

"march to a different drummer"这个词组（文章最后一句话）暗示了那些非常具有创造力的人们            。
[A] 勤奋地追求着他们的目标
[B] 不愿意用普通的方式做事情
[C] 献身给了科学进步
[D] 关心社会的前进