Honors English 10
Summer Reading Assignment 2017 - Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell Introduction “The Roseto Mystery” The Roseto Mystery follows the story of the citizens of an Italian-bred town in Pennsylvania called Roseto. Roseto was a tiny, self-sufficient world in which they kept to themselves most of the time so even the towns right next door were unaware of what was occurring in this small town.. A physician named Stewart Wolf from the University of Oklahoma came to Pennsylvania to give a talk not too far from Roseto. After the talk, Wolf and one of the doctors in the area got together for a beer and discussed the medical miracle of Roseto. The doctor said to Wolf that he gets patients from everywhere, and he rarely finds …show more content…
In the beginning of this chapter, I was convinced the higher the person’s IQ was the greater potential they had. One piece of evidence that supports this statement is, “It is almost impossible… to read a newspaper account of any sort of competition or activity in which California boys and girls participate without finding among the winners the names of one or more… members of our gifted group.” (Gladwell, 75). This quote goes to show that the individuals of a certain group that obtain higher IQ compared to others in that same group tend to do better in academic competitions or activities. Which is expected. However, no one took into consideration if academic capabilities was all that was needed to build one’s potential. Would having a high IQ score necessarily always get you a job in a creative field (such as a fashion or interior designer) over someone with a lower IQ score, but with more creativity? Likely, no. It is said in this chapter that intelligence has a threshold, meaning once you get past a certain limit of how intelligent one can be, the importance of intelligence goes out the window and what is looked at then is other important factors such as creativity and teamwork skills. In labs, for example, scientists or engineers are expected to know how to come up with bigger and better ideas to improve whatever they’re working on that no one has thought of before. If someone hired does not have the creativity needed, nothing will ever get done. However, if someone who has a lower IQ, but more creativity than the previous candidate, they will most likely be the better fit for the position based off of how well they can get the job done. Overall, by the end of the chapter, I do not think that the higher the IQ a person has determines whether they will succeed in life, amongst others. I believe that intelligence is just one of many factors that ultimately decides one’s