Edward M. Baldwin--Reading Quiz answer

READING QUIZ

First things first: If you didn’t read the passage, reading doesn’t come easy for you. You may say to yourself that you simply didn’t feel like reading it, but, you see, that’s the whole point.

If I asked you to touch your monitor right now, would you have to “feel like it?” Of course not. But what if I asked you to clean your monitor and keyboard with a swab? Am I imposing on a “feeling” yet? The difference between touching your monitor and cleaning your entire computer is one word: effort. If you didn’t make the effort to read the passage, it may be due to a flabby mind, one filled with too much mental candy (celebrity gossip magazines, subtitles on “reality” television shows, phone text messages) and not enough mental protein. I would offer advice, but you probably didn’t read this far, so I won’t bother.

For those of you who completed the exercise, ask yourself this question: Was it an “exercise?” Was it a real effort for you? Old school reading tests would ask you to recall what you’ve read, answering questions that require you to search the text for answers, but this is one of the lowest levels of brain activity. Creation (or “synthesis” as it’s called) is one of the highest.

This quiz simply measures your willingness to think, the process of using your mind to consider something carefully. If you want to get better at thinking, what do you have to do? Stand on one foot? No. You get better at thinking by thinking, and reading makes you think. Period.