Analytical Essay On Outliers By Malcolm Gladwell

Intelligence comes in many forms and many types. There’s crystallized intelligence, which is the stuff taught in school, and what tests measure. There’s also fluid intelligence, which is one’s ability to think critically and problem-solve, it’s one’s “street smarts”. People often revere intelligence as the most important trait to success, besides hard work and determination. Although that’s not entirely true, it definitely helps to be smart. Successful people are often labeled “geniuses”. People will list endless ways to increase one’s intelligence, such as eating a certain food, or doing a puzzle a day, but research has shown these three, legitimate contributors to an overall higher intelligence: genetics, diet as a child, and music lessons.

One needs a mixture of different types, like analytical (crystallized) intelligence, fluid intelligence, AND practical intelligence, which is knowing how to argue, read situations, convince, people, etc. In the third and fourth chapters of Outliers, a book written by Malcolm Gladwell, Gladwell explains it very well. He takes two people with extremely high IQs: Chris Langan and Robert Oppenheimer. Throughout the chapter he compares the two men’s stories, and shows how although Langan had just as high of an IQ as Oppenheimer, he was unsuccessful in life. He hasn’t made any amazing new discoveries, or created something wonderful, he dropped out of college. Oppenheimer on the other hand helped design the first atomic bomb. In the chapter, Gladwell points out what Oppenheimer had that Langan didn’t: practical intelligence, the ability to argue, reason, and convince people of something. For instance, Oppenheimer had no consequences after he tried to kill his tutor in graduate school, Langan could hardly talk to his professors at college. Gladwell shows another example in the previous chapter, when he compares the answers of two students on a test. The test asked them to come up with as many uses for a blanket as possible. One student came up with nearly a dozen hilarious answers, whereas another student only came up with about three obvious ones. The first student did much better on that test and would probably do better in a real life situation, since he was more creative. However, the first student had a lower IQ than the second student. Normally one would expect the second student to do better in everyday life, although that wouldn’t be the case. Those two examples and many, many others help show that although having a high IQ score is certainly helpful, it’s not the most important thing to one’s success and