The Outliers Gladwell Analysis

Malcolm Gladwell makes many debatable claims in his book “The Outliers”. One of these controversial topics is brought up in chapter three when he talks about a person’s IQ and how that relates to one’s success. Gladwell says, “The relationship between success and IQ works only up to a point. Once someone has reached an IQ of somewhere around 120, having additional IQ points doesn’t seem to translate into any measurable real-world advantage.”After reading “Outliers” I believe that this is the greatest controversial topic. I agree with Malcolm Gladwell because there are a high amount of people who are not incredibly smart that are very successful, success can be viewed differently by different people, and from my own experiences on the U-High

Some people work hard their whole life to achieve success and others just seem to be born talented in a certain field that they prevail in. One of the ways an individual can attempt to become successful is by working diligently in school to obtain a proper education. Access to advanced education is key if you would want to become very intelligent and furthermore the so called “gifted programs” in these advanced education systems are supposed to make you even smarter.People have wondered if going through gifted programs would make you more successful in your adult life.There was a man named Richard Terman, who wanted to take a group of kids in these gifted programs, his “Termites”, and track how successful they were later in life. He was hoping to find that the kids that were in advanced classes would in fact become very successful adults and he was right. When his Termites were adults many of them became experts in different fields. Terman measured the success of the chosen people by looking at awards they have achieved and all of the writings that they have published and the amount of these achievements was fairly

Currently I am on the U-High varsity soccer team with many of my other classmates. I am currently taking a hand full of very hard, challenging courses this year and by taking these hard classes I am learning tons of new subjects, therefore raising my IQ. According to Kendra Cherry, a professional psychologist, the average IQ ranges anywhere from 85 to 120. While reading about IQ I was inquisitive to know what my own score would be so I took an online IQ test. I know that this test was probably not the most accurate test in the world but it gives a baseline, which for me was 138. This shows that my IQ is on the high range compared to the average scores. Also I am a junior this year, while there are players from every other grades on the team as well. I am on the varsity team, but I do not start and I very rarely have the chance to enter the game. On the other hand a teammate of mine, who is a freshman, starts in every game. Since I am a junior and he is a freshman, I have had more education because I have been in school for that much longer than him. Also my IQ is above average while his is probably a little bit lower than mine. Even though I have a higher IQ than him, he is a more successful soccer player than I am. Knowing this you could make the assumption that a higher IQ does not necessarily lead to being more successful in soccer.