英语学习笔记：2016-06-13

《Economist》里面提到社会主义核心价值观，可能是为了方便理解的缘故，“敬业”被翻译成了“dedication to work”，刚好借这个机会把这十二个词过了一遍：

社会主义核心价值观（core socialist values）

• prosperity（富强）
• democracy（民主）
• civility（文明）
• harmony（和谐）
• freedom（自由）
• equality（平等）
• justice（公正）
• the rule of law（法治）
• patriotism（爱国）
• dedication（敬业）
• integrity（诚信）
• friendship（友善）

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网上很知名的说明英语单词多如牛毛的一个图：

知道为什么英语单词多吗？

针对其中的四个说明，延展开来学习了一下：

buck确实可以指公羊、公兔、公鹿，甚至可以指公仓鼠、公眼镜猴、公袋鼠等等，维基上有人整理过，非常的详尽和全面，还增加了“一群的时候”，“学名”，“肉名”的三个维度，就更复杂了：《List of animal names》

根据上面的词条，另外几个问题的答案就很清晰了：
小公牛：young bull（steer在北美可以当小公牛，但是在美国当阉牛的意思）
小母牛：heifer
小公鸡：cockerel
小母鸡：pullet
公山羊：billy
公绵羊：ram
母绵羊：ewe

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昨天在维基上研究 Insight^[1] 这个词的时候，看到有三个例子：

• Candle Problem^[2]，著名的思维局限实验
• Nine Dot problem^[3]，看过《邋遢大王》的朋友应该会有印象
• Remote Associates Test^[4]，一个创造力的测量方法

第一次听说 RAT 这个概念，可以将“创造力”进行量化并建立测试实验模型：

The Remote Association Test（在微弱相关性实验） was originally created by Professor Sarnoff Mednick at the University of Michigan in 1962. Mednick created the RAT based on his belief that a creative person could think of novel ideas and use them effectively. Mednick tested the RAT on his students and reported a validity coefficient of .70. In 1967 Mednick published "Examiner's manual: Remote Associates Test" with his wife Martha.

Mednick believed the RAT could be used to test "all fields of creative endeavor" and suggest that those who excel on the RAT will be gifted creatively as well as in the sciences. Mednick also suggested that this test be used to select students from lower-income families to be admitted to special educational programs. However there is no data that shows that students who have done well on the RAT excel in any particular subject leading to criticism of the validity of the RAT. Worthen and Clark (1971) concluded that the RAT measured sensitivity to language rather than creative potential. The correct response is often the most common response and does not link the other three words in any conceptual way. Worthen and Clark improved upon the RAT to create the Functionally Remote Associates Test (FRAT) that depends on functional relationships.

查看相关资料的时候，看到有另一个也非常知名的创造力测试实验：TTCT（Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking：托兰斯创造性思维测验）：

Building on J.P. Guilford's work and created by Ellis Paul Torrance, the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking (TTCT), a test of creativity, originally involved simple tests of divergent thinking and other problem-solving skills, which were scored on four scales:

• Fluency. The total number of interpretable, meaningful, and relevant ideas generated in response to the stimulus.

• Flexibility. The number of different categories of relevant responses.
• Originality. The statistical rarity of the responses.
• Elaboration. The amount of detail in the responses.

The third edition of the TTCT in 1984 eliminated the Flexibility scale from the figural test, but added Resistance to Premature Closure (based on Gestalt Psychology) and Abstractness of Titles as two new criterion-referenced scores on the figural. Torrance called the new scoring procedure Streamlined Scoring. With the five norm-referenced measures that he now had (fluency, originality, abstractness of titles, elaboration and resistance to premature closure), he added 13 criterion-referenced measures which include: emotional expressiveness, story-telling articulateness, movement or actions, expressiveness of titles, syntheses of incomplete figures, synthesis of lines, of circles, unusual visualization, extending or breaking boundaries, humor, richness of imagery, colourfulness of imagery, and fantasy.

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1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insight ↩

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candle_problem ↩

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking_outside_the_box ↩

4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Associates_Test ↩