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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Gladwell say Ranadivé’s players supplanted ability with?

2. How old was Gladwell’s powerful Hollywood friend, when he started a snow-shoveling business with other students?

3. Why does Gladwell say Goliath said that David was coming at him with multiple sticks?

4. When do dyslexics typically get a diagnosis, according to Gladwell?

5. What is the name of the valley in which David and Goliath faced off?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Gladwell characterize Goliath’s size and equipment?

2. What kind of lesson does Gladwell derive from the story of Jules Holtzapffel?

3. What does Gladwell say causes dyslexia?

4. Where were the Philistines expanding into, when they encountered the armies of the Israelites?

5. What is Gladwell’s hierarchy of professions?

6. What does Gladwell say leads people to adopt David’s strategies?

7. What are the physiological flaws Gladwell identifies in Goliath’s body type?

8. How does Gladwell explain Ikea’s success through “disagreeableness” (118)?

9. How does Gladwell say dyslexia helped prepare David Boies to be a trial lawyer?

10. What did Ranadivé find was the disadvantage of his success with his coaching style?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

When is David and Goliath most itself? What is its characteristic passage, or moment? What makes that moment or passage the most representative of the book as a whole? Are there any places where the book seems to depart from its typical self, as if to become a different book?

Essay Topic 2

Who is the audience for David and Goliath? What is the ideal reader for David and Goliath likely to think about the book’s main topics? How does this book try to affect the reader? What is it trying to teach him or her, or get him or her to do?

Essay Topic 3

Gladwell seems to wear two different hats throughout David and Goliath: the storyteller and the analyst. What are the advantages and disadvantages of either role, and where is Gladwell strongest? Why?

(see the answer keys)

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