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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Gladwell think is the reason for the success of the KIPP Academy?
(a) They welcome any student who wants to learn.
(b) They have stepped outside the cultural legacy on which most public school systems are based.
(c) They only admit those in the upper 10 percent of the IQ range.
(d) They cater to advantaged children.

2. Why do farmers in Europe in the Middle Ages go into a sort of hibernation state?
(a) To rest for the hard work in the Spring.
(b) To keep their bodies from overwork.
(c) To conserve energy and to eat less.
(d) To keep from starving.

3. What is the second lesson of Joe Flom?
(a) Demographic luck.
(b) Luck of the Draw.
(c) Litigious distribution.
(d) High birth rates.

4. What occasionally erupts into violence and murder?
(a) Competition to hire garment workers.
(b) A feud between the Howards and Turners.
(c) A yearly festival in Harlan.
(d) Competition to buy potential mining land.

5. How often does the rice farmer have to tend to the rice paddies?
(a) Just in the Spring.
(b) Continually.
(c) Just in the summer.
(d) Two or three times a month.

6. What is one characteristic of a rice paddy?
(a) It requires very little water.
(b) It is a complicated system.
(c) It is a fairly simple system.
(d) It requires very little attention.

7. Who are the Howards and Turners?
(a) Two families who go into the garment business in Harlan.
(b) Two families who go into the mining business in Harlan.
(c) Two large families who settle in Harlan.
(d) Two families who continuously intermarry.

8. Why does Flom and those of his generation have their pick of good schools?
(a) College is just becoming popular and so colleges are competing to get students.
(b) The supply of students is relatively low.
(c) College is not valued at that time.
(d) New universities are arising rapidly in this era.

9. Why does Joe Flom have trouble getting a job after college?
(a) From being Hispanic.
(b) From being Jewish.
(c) From being Irish.
(d) Because he did not make good grades in college.

10. What does George Hofstede research?
(a) Cultural differences within a country.
(b) Plane crashes.
(c) Cultural differences among countries.
(d) Training routines.

11. How are rice plants weeded and harvested?
(a) It depends on the species of rice.
(b) By hand.
(c) With two special machines.
(d) With one machine.

12. What do many of the children of the Borgenichts family and those like them become?
(a) Artists in various areas.
(b) Teachers.
(c) Businessmen.
(d) Doctors and lawyers.

13. What does Gladwell say about reading schools at the end of one year compared to at the beginning of the next year?
(a) The poorest students make no progress in their reading skills over the summer.
(b) The most average studentsstudents make no progress in their reading skills over the summer.
(c) Only the very brightest students students make progress in their reading skills over the summer.
(d) The smartest students make no progress in their reading skills over the summer.

14. What does the ground have to be like for a successful rice paddy?
(a) Well drained.
(b) Sandy.
(c) Loamy.
(d) Level.

15. What can Chinese farmers do if they produce more than the taxed amount?
(a) Gladwell does not say.
(b) Keep it.
(c) Share it.
(d) They are only allowed to produce a certain amount.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is one way in which Flom's life is affected by the second lesson of Joe Flom?

2. What is the Colombian pilot's attitude when he communicates the plane's situation to the air traffic controller?

3. What is the KIPP Academy?

4. What is the most important thing in the type of culture Gladwell examines in Kentucky?

5. Who are the Hatfields and McCoys?

(see the answer keys)

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