taukebai2002

19.05.2021 10:04 •  Английский язык

ответить на вопросы по тексту. The secret of genius
She looks like any other girl in her first year at school: a smart uniform, a happy
smile and a bag of books. But Dineshi, a five-year-old from west London is so
clever that she seems almost unreal. With an IQ* of 160, Dineshi knew the
alphabet, the days of week and the months of the year when she was one and a
half. She started reading just before her second birthday and writing just after it.
‘When she was a baby, I realized she was exceptionally bright,’ says Dineshi’s
mother, ‘so I tried to provide an environment to help her develop intellectually. I
started giving her lessons and she enjoyed them.’ By comparison with the others,
such children seem to be incredible intelligent. But according to Professor Michael
Howe, a psychologist at Exeter University, they do not have an inborn superhuman
talent. Their 20 remarkable achievements are the result of practice, persistence, and
an encouraging environment. The case of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart seems to
support Professor Howe’s theory. Mozart was composing music by the age of 5,
and at 6 or 7 he was giving professional concerts around Europe. Most people
believe that that this was the result of inborn genius. But Professor Howe claims
that Mozart’s childhood compositions are largely arrangements of other
composers’ work. Most importantly, his father was an extremely ambitious music
teacher who made his son practice more than three hours a day. By the time he was
6, he had probably spent 3,500 hours studying music. Are geniuses happy? As a
child in the early 1900s, Billy Sidis was described as ‘the most remarkable boy in
the United States’. Brilliant at languages, he taught himself Latin at four and could
read and speak 8 languages when he was six. At seven, he gave lecture to the
University of Harvard Mathematical Club. He was genius until everything began to
go wrong. His parents had to push him to develop his exceptional intelligence, but
had totally neglected other important skills. For example, Sidis did not know how
to dress himself properly even by the time he was adolescent. Finally, he suffered a
breakdown. There are plenty of people who have high IQs but never achieve
anything great. They are bright, but they lack the drive to get on: motivation.
Thomas Edison, the inventor of electric light, said genius was 99% perspiration,
1% inspiration. Thus, in conclusion it might be said, we should all be able to excel
if we try hard 21 enough. *IQ – Intelligence Quotient: a measure if intelligence.
Answer the following questions:
1) When did Daneshi start to write?
2) Why can Dineshi be called genius?
3) Who is Professor Howe?
4) How does the case of Mozart support Howe’s ideas?
5) What does the example of Billy Sidis show about genius?
6) What skills did Billy Sidis lack?