新视野大学英语Unit8-A Pre-reading Activities

 First Listening 
Having ideas about a story before you read it is an important reading skill. Please listen to a very short piece of recording.
    Good ideas come from the unconscious mind or brain activity usually not controlled by us. It is easiest to examine this kind of thinking in famous people. For example, Wagner thought about writing some music for many years and struggled for many months to start it. Then, suddenly, when he was ill and not able to sleep, he fell into a sleeplike state and the sound of water in his mind became the music for the opening of his work. His conscious mind at that moment did not know how this had happened. In another example, Poincare’s conscious mind actually watched his unconscious mind at work as it developed a very difficult mathematics function. In a third example, the philosopher Descartes made an important discovery with the help of a dream. 
  
Second Listening
Now listen to the recording for the second time and try to the best of your ability to answer the following questions.

1. Where do good ideas come from?
2. How many examples or ways of getting good ideas are discussed?
3. How did Wagner get the idea for the beginning of his music?