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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. According to researchers Dina Rose and her colleague, what is the threshold for incarceration in a neighborhood, beyond which the “effect on crime starts to reverse” (246)?

2. What does Gladwell say led to the “unexpected freedom” that Wyatt Walker felt, in stirring up trouble with Bull Connor (173)?

3. How does Gladwell characterize the British army in their role in northern Ireland?

4. How does Gladwell say Kimber Reynolds’ killer explained why he killed her?

5. What does Rosemary Lawlor say was the action that started the snowball effect that broke the curfew in Lower Falls?

Short Essay Questions

1. What is the flaw in Nathan Leites and Charles Wolf’s report Rebellion and Authority, According to Gladwell?

2. Why does Gladwell say that it took the British so long to understand that they were applying too much force in northern Ireland?

3. In what way does Gladwell say that northern Ireland is just like a kindergarten classroom?

4. What was Konrad Kellen’s approach to the Vietnam War?

5. What does Gladwell say would have happened had the Nazis killed André Trocmé?

6. What was the effect of the Three Strikes law in California?

7. Where had Kellen gotten his background for the RAND job to consult on the Vietnam war?

8. How does Turtle win the race with Deer, in the Brer Rabbit story Gladwell relates?

9. What were the effects of the Three Strikes law that turned public opinion against it, and led to its being “radically scaled back” (248)?

10. How did the women of Ballymurphy break the curfew in Lower Falls?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Identify the most important points in David and Goliath. How is the book organized? How does this differ from how a novel is organized with plot points?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Gladwell frequently juxtaposes what his subjects do with what “the rest of us” do or think (273). Who are the “we” in Gladwell’s views, and what do “we” typically think? Does Gladwell define this common knowledge, or just use “us” as a straw man for his arguments? What is the real difference between “us” and his subjects?

(see the answer keys)

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