View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. How was police officer Joanna Jaffe trying to show the community of Brownsville that the police were on their side?

2. How does Gladwell say Martin Luther King Jr. prepared his team for their trip to Birmingham?

3. What was the British army doing in Lower Falls, Belfast, while they instituted the curfew?

4. What does Gladwell say geniuses require that prodigies do not?

5. What is Wilma Derksen’s religious background?

Short Essay Questions

1. What does Gladwell say happened in Montreal when the police went on strike?

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

3. How does Gladwell explain the trait that allowed Londoners to go about their business during the Blitz?

4. In what way does Gladwell say Hudson’s photo is “trickery” (192)?

5. What is the lesson Gladwell derives from the video of the third-grade classroom from the Curry School of Education?

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

7. How does Wyatt Walker say he had to adjust his tactics to the situation at hand?

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

9. What was Mike Reynolds’ reaction when his daughter Kimber was shot and killed by a meth addict?

10. How does Gladwell explain Freireich’s wife’s bond to him?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

What are Gladwell’s intellectual blind spots? What are the kinds of behavior or complexity he tends not to see?

Essay Topic 2

In addition to being a writer, Gladwell is known for his podcasts. Compare and contrast Gladwell’s book with a podcast episode. How are they similar, how are they different? Is Gladwell making podcast literary, or making books more like podcasts? In which genre does Gladwell come into his own?

Essay Topic 3

Evaluate your own reading of David and Goliath—did you resist it, or were you compelled by the story? What does your reading tell you about yourself and your interests? Use specific examples from the book to describe yourself as a reader.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 1,067 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample