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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 did the best paintings get at the Paris Salon?
2. What metric does Gladwell say Hoxby used in evaluating class size?
3. What does Gladwell say is the best way to raise test scores on the Cognitive Reflection Test?
4. Where does Gladwell say dyslexics’ neurons get “lost along the way” (99)?
5. Why dose Gary Cohn say he left school?
Short Essay Questions
1. Where were the Philistines expanding into, when they encountered the armies of the Israelites?
2. 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?
3. What does Gladwell say caused the changing demographics of Shepaug Valley Middle School in Connecticut?
4. How does Gladwell characterize Goliath’s size and equipment?
5. What does Gladwell say is the advantage David has over Goliath?
6. What does Gladwell say leads people to adopt David’s strategies?
7. What is “relative deprivation” (77)?
8. Gladwell seems to want it both ways, valuing poverty and celebrating wealth. Does Gladwell acknowledge or try to resolve this contradiction?
9. Why does Gladwell say that Caroline Sacks should have gone to University of Maryland instead of Brown University?
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
What are Gladwell’s intellectual blind spots? What are the kinds of behavior or complexity he tends not to see?
Essay Topic 2
What has Gladwell’s book taught you about fighting giants in your own life? What giants are you and your people up against? What weaknesses does Gladwell’s book help you identify? What strengths of your own does Gladwell encourage you to use?
Essay Topic 3
In many of Gladwell’s stories, Gladwell attributes a person’s success to the one trait he (Gladwell) is talking about—but this approach blinds us to the thousands of other variables that affect people’s careers and decisions, which in many cases are tied to other factors like the times, or simple luck, or the privileges of class and race that kept Dr. Freireich from being jailed for DWI, for instance (137).
How are Context and Privilege eclipsed in Gladwell’s stories, how does he try to account for them, and how successful is he? Does his refusal to include compounding variables ultimately compromise his examples to two-dimensionality?
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This section contains 1,112 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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