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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. How much does Gladwell say per-pupil spending increased in the U.S. from 1996 to 2004?

2. Where does David’s stone hit Goliath?

3. How many people had the courage to like a painting without Salon approval, according to Renoir?

4. How many men does Gladwell say T. E. Lawrence’s force captured?

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

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the lesson Gladwell wants us to take from his parable of David and Goliath?

2. What is Vivek Ranadivé’s qualification to coach basketball?

3. What is the chart Gladwell uses, to describe the phenomenon of “diminishing marginal returns” (49)?

4. What does Gladwell say is Gary Cohn’s emotional relationship with the daring leaps he took, to get himself into trading, from selling aluminum siding?

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

6. What are the challenges Gladwell’s powerful Hollywood friend experienced, in raising his children?

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

8. Why does Gladwell say that Caroline Sacks should have gone to University of Maryland instead of Brown University?

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

10. What does Gladwell say about Gary Cohn’s relationship with failure?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

What are Gladwell’s intellectual blind spots? What are the kinds of behavior or complexity he tends not to see?

Essay Topic 3

Write an evaluative review of David and Goliath. What is this book’s place in our culture? Who will find this book most useful? What are its uses? What are its limitations?

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