2020수능특강 영어 9강 본문

 9강

1

 Thomas Edison failed ten thousand times until, like a bolt of lightening, the solution to the challenge of the incandescent light bulb hit him, and because of this, he transformed the world. Rosa Parks had no idea that choosing to resist her conditioning ― the injustice of racial prejudicing ― and risking imprisonment, beating, or even worse, would spark a revolution that would transform history for all men and women, regardless of race. When Mother Teresa chose to leave her position educating the privileged classes of India in order to care for the poor and forgotten, people thought that she was crazy. At the time, Mother Teresa had no idea of the global impact that this decision would have on the world. Albert Einstein received the solution to his Theory of Relativity while dreaming that he was riding on a beam of light. So, too, will you receive your aha moments of brilliance, unexpectedly and through no effort of your own. 

 

2

 The major themes of country music are work, freedom, and alienation, appearing in approximately one-sixth of all Top 20 selections. Country music is itself a commercial offshoot of the traditional song and instrumental music of the South, formerly carried on in an oral tradition. Consequently, from the start country music was an eclectic mix, which included ancient British ballads, Americanized versions of these, sacred songs, minstrel tunes, early blues, and songs of many sorts absorbed from the commercial popular music industry over the years. Over the 20th century it has grown from a homegrown and heartfelt music, expressing working-class identity, into a commercial music, produced by others to appeal to a working-class identity, whether or not its listeners are actually working class. The symbolic meaning of country music as the declared favorite music of New England-educated, upper-class President George Bush ― presenting him as a “regular American” ― is unmistakable. 

 

3

 We must understand that busyness does not necessarily equal productivity, and in order to accomplish anything in life, we must prioritize. What we put at the top of our list determines how we spend our time and how much value we get out of each and every day. The truth is, most of us are unconscious about how we truly spend our time, prioritizing things that we say don’t really matter to us. We waste our extra time watching TV, complaining, or sleeping our lives away. We mindlessly scroll through social media and spend hours talking on the phone, and we don’t make good use of our time traveling to and from work. We do so much in a day, yet wonder where all of our time went. Once we get honest about how we’re actually spending our days, we can begin to prioritize what’s most important to us, and start taking back our time. 

 

4

 The term genius can be traced back to the Latin word ingenium: a natural-born talent. The essence of this talent is seen as original productivity, which employs confident intuition to access new areas of creativity. The person who has genius ― a brilliant creative power ― is also known as an genius. It was not until the Renaissance that people began to describe an artistic creative potential or the source of inspiration as genius. The key significance for invention is that the so-called genius develops ideas that no one has had previously and, in the words of Immanuel Kant, that ‘genius must be considered the very opposite of a spirit of imitation’. In addition, Kant established that genius ‘cannot indicate scientifically how it brings about its product, but rather gives the rule as nature. Hence, where an author owes a product to his genius, he does not himself know how he conceived the ideas, nor is it in his power to invent the like at pleasure, or methodically, and communicate the same to others in such precepts as would put them in a position to produce similar products. 

 

5

 The way our society views weight and getting into shape is one example of where expectations are often out of touch with reality, and lead to impatience ― one of the top reasons why over 95 percent of all diets fail. We are led to believe through various media that dropping pounds is something that can be done quickly and effectively if we try hard enough. The reality show The Biggest Loser, where contestants drop ten or even twenty pounds in one week, implies that rapid results are not only possible but commonplace. We search for the latest fads and are drawn to products claiming to trim our waistline in thirty days or less. Yet time after time we find ourselves, after attempts to diet, with ever more weight to lose. While there are many factors that go into weight loss and healthy living, one of the hardest things for people to accept is that any real lifestyle change takes time: time to break bad habits and time to form new healthy ones. 

 

6

 Recent psychological research has revealed that college students who look at a two-second video clip of a professor teaching can predict how students who spend an entire semester with that professor will like that professor by the end of the semester. In other words, a student watching a two-second clip of a professor says, “I like him.” Or “I don’t like him.” That statement is then recorded. At the end of the semester, students who have taken a class with the professor anonymously record whether or not they liked the professor. With incredible accuracy, those watching the two-second clip predict what the entire class will feel at the end of the semester. It sounds unbelievable, but it is true. One of the big mistakes we make is making a poor impression on others. 

 

7

 Imagination and creativity are the gate keys of fantasy role-playing. If students cannot imagine themselves engaged by the fantasy world described to them, then the game cannot get off the ground. The students exercise their imagination and creativity in countless ways, from taking on the role of their assigned characters to interacting with other creatures and alien environments. In every case, what is minimally called for is imaginative flexibility in order to react appropriately to the multiple situations the students encounter, while looking ahead to the consequences of various actions and decisions. This means that fantasy role-playing provides an ideal environment to cultivate and test the productive use of imagination, utilizing it to enliven the fantasy narrative, envision alternatives, and empathize with others. 

 

8

 Advertising is a form of persuasion. This means that from square one, your goals and interests are often very different from those of the advertiser. Let’s say your goal is to buy the best dishwashing machine you can afford. I don’t have to be the first to break it to you that this is not the main concern of an advertising copywriter for a home appliance company. He’s unlikely to suffer a single pang of failure upon finding out that, by buying the washer in his beautifully-crafted ad, you’ve passed up a wiser purchase. If you really want to read something that’s written with your best interests in mind, you pick up a copy of Consumer Reports ― you don’t go flipping through Good Housekeeping to find that dishwasher ad you saw last week. When you do read the ad, you take it for granted that any comparisons it makes to the competitions are not necessarily “fair and balanced.”