Excercise

Exercise #1: Kindred Relationships

There have been many efforts to define or explain the creative process. Psychologist Sarnoff A. Mednick of the University of Michigan thinks of it as the forming of associative elements into new combinations or arrangements.

That may not be the whole story, but the person who can marshal a great number of associations and ideas and bring them to bear on his problem has the best chance of coming up with an original solution.

In this exercise, think of a fifth word that is related to the preceding four words. (Compound and hyphenated words or commonly used expressions are allowed.)

Examples:

1. Elephant, bleed, lie, wash

Answer:White (white elephant, bleed white, white lie,

white-wash)

2. Sleeping, contest, spot, shop

Answer: Beauty (sleeping beauty, beauty contest, beauty spot, beauty shop)

Now train your own associative powers with the following sets:

 1. | bug | rest | fellow | cover | ____________________ |

 2. | cross | baby | blood | ribbon | ____________________ |

 3. | see | carpet | hot | cent | ____________________ |

 4. | touch | palate | soap | sell | ____________________ |

 5. | easy | hush | belt | order | ____________________ |

 6. | tree | cup | cake | forbidden | ____________________ |

 7. | wagon | stand | aid | dance | ____________________ |

 8. | dust | movie | gaze | sapphire | ____________________ |

 9. | tooth | talk | potato | bitter | ____________________ |

10. | alley | date | snow | spot | ____________________ |

Answers: 1. Bed 2. Blue 3. Red 4. Soft 5. Money 6. Fruit 7. Band 8. Star 9. Sweet 10. Blind |

Exercise #4: Breaking Out

Most of us impose too many imaginary boundaries, restrictions, and constraints upon our problems, and hence fail to solve them.

| The problem: Draw four straight lines through the nine dots without retracing and without lifting your pen from the paper. |

| The key to the solution is, of course, that the...