Skip to main contentSkip to solution

The passage given below is followed by four alternate summaries. Choose the option that best captures the essence of the passage.

Creativity is now viewed as the engine of economic progress. Various organizations are devoted to its study and promotion; there are encyclopedias and handbooks surveying creativity research. But this proliferating success has tended to erode creativity's stable identity: it has become so invested with value that it has become impossible to police its meaning and the practices that supposedly identify and encourage it. Many people and organizations committed to producing original thoughts now feel that undue obsession with the idea of creativity gets in the way of real creativity.

Solution

✅ Correct Option: 3

We need to find what happens when something becomes too valued and how that affects the real thing itself.

From passage: "it has become so invested with value that it has become impossible to police its meaning and the practices that supposedly identify and encourage it"

From passage: "Many people and organizations committed to producing original thoughts now feel that undue obsession with the idea of creativity gets in the way of real creativity"

The passage shows a clear chain: Creativity gets valued highly -> Organizations study it everywhere -> This success makes creativity lose its clear meaning -> Too much focus on creativity actually blocks real creativity.

Think of it like this: When everyone talks about being "cool" all the time, trying to be cool actually makes you less cool. Same thing here with creativity.


Now let's see which option captures this idea best:

🔴 Option 1 -> degree-error -> Says the industry destroyed creativity, but passage says obsession just "gets in the way." Also blames the industry instead of the obsession itself.

🔴 Option 2 -> scope-error -> Says creativity itself proliferated, but passage says organizations studying creativity proliferated. Also wrongly suggests there was ever a "stable process" for creativity.

🟢 Option 3 -> correct -> Captures the exact flow: high value -> lost meaning -> hampering real creativity. Matches both the cause (too much value) and effect (blocking real creativity).

🟠 Option 4 -> context-shift -> Focuses on defining creativity, but passage is about how obsession blocks creativity. Misses the main point about hampering real creative work.

Option 3 gets both parts right: the cause (too much value placed on creativity) and the effect (this actually hurts real creativity).

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Left arrow: Previous question
  • Right arrow: Next question
  • S key: Jump to solution
  • Q key: Jump to question