Outliers: The Story of Success Chapter Summary & Analysis - Part 1, Chapter 3, The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1 Summary

Part 1, Chapter 3, The Trouble with Geniuses, Part 1 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 3 is called "The Trouble with Genius, Part 1" Gladwell begins with a description of Chris Langan, a man who has possibly the highest IQ of anyone alive. He describes Langan's appearance on a television quiz show, as well as the remarkable intelligence he displays at a very young age. Gladwell leaves the discussion of Langan to return to his story later.

Gladwell turns to the subject of IQ, which is short for "intelligence quotient." A standard IQ test called the Stanford-Binet test is developed by Professor Lewis Terman at Stanford University. Terman performs a remarkable experiment beginning in the 1920s, in which he sifts through school records to find a group of children with very high IQ scores, whom he then tracks through their school career and into their adult life. He measures their success. He expects that high IQ will predict success as an adult, but the...
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