Puzzle Rush | Revisionist History | Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm challenges his assistant Camille to the Law School Admissions Test. He gets halfway through, panics, runs out of time, and wonders: why does the legal world want him to rush?
Season 4 (2019)
#podcast #revisionisthistory #malcolmgladwell
ABOUT REVISIONIST HISTORY
Revisionist History is Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every podcast episode re-examines something from the past - an event, a person, an idea, even a song - and asks whether we got it right the first time. Because sometimes the past deserves a second chance.
ABOUT MALCOLM GLADWELL
Malcolm Gladwell is president and co-founder of Pushkin Industries. He is a journalist, a speaker, and the author of six New York Times bestsellers including The Tipping Point, Blink, Outliers, David and Goliath, and Talking to Strangers. He has been a staff writer for the New Yorker since 1996. He is a trustee of the Surgo Foundation and currently serves on the board of the RAND Corporation.
ABOUT PUSHKIN INDUSTRIES
Pushkin Industries is an audio production company dedicated to creating premium content in a collaborative environment. Co-founded by Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg in 2018, Pushkin has launched seven new shows into the top 10 on Apple Podcasts (Against the Rules, The Happiness Lab, Solvable, Cautionary Tales, Deep Cover, The Last Archive, and Lost Hills), in addition to producing the hugely successful Revisionist History. Pushkin’s growing audiobook catalogue includes includes the bestselling biography “Fauci,” by Michael Specter, “Hasta La Vista, America,” Kurt Andersen’s parody Trump farewell speech performed by Alec Baldwin, "Takeover" by Noah Feldman, and “Talking to Strangers,” from Pushkin co-founder Malcolm Gladwell. Pushkin is dedicated to producing audio in any format that challenges listeners and inspires curiosity and joy.
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[@MissyGail4eva]

SEASON FOUR, Hooray! 🎉😁

[@mzmscoyote]

I did not take the LSAT; I took the GRE. Repeatedly. Like the LSAT, the GRE is supposed to predict how well one will do in grad school. I took the GRE repeatedly because I made abysmal scores on it and each time I took it I raised my score over 100 points. You see, like Gladwell, I did not grow up in a system that taught me how to take standardized tests. I got into grad school on my interviews and recommendations, not my GRE. I got my MA with my 3.7 and my PhD with my 4.0. What I learned is that standardized tests measure test taking ability and in my field one is evaluated on performance, speaking, and writing. Thus the GRE was meaningless for predicting grad school performance. Why was I unusual among my classmates all of whom had high GRE scores? I did not let a stupid test turn me away from my goal. As I watched a friend administer standardized tests to fourth graders for 20 years I understood that the tests were not measuring the kids performance on academics but rather their ability to quickly make the right choice and bubble it in. Where do we need choice making and careful bubbling? Shopping. In shopping we chose which item of several to buy and sign for it. With standardized tests we are creating consumers - convenient in a Capitalist economy that is driven by demand.

[@nathanngumi8467]

Very intriguing!

[@bthomson]

You're like a cat! Curious about everything that seems odd or exceptional. Lucky for us! 😍🤔🕵🐈

[@donaldjmccann]

Although I am now considered an old man at age 70, I have had an interesting intellectual life; I am a tortoise. In my youth I typically did very well in exams, whether timed or not. I remember taking a computer science hardware exam at university that at first made me wonder if I was in the correct exam room; none of the question topics looked the least bit familiar to me. I think I had the closest thing to an anxiety attack I have ever had, until suddenly, every word from every lecture came pouring into my brain and out onto the page…I aced the exam. I am curious if this is a common phenomenon, or very rare. Perhaps you can do a program on it. Prior to having a brain operation last January, to treat essential tremor, I was given a battery of cognition tests. One of the tests involved picking out pictures of front doors of houses from a catalogue of doors that I had looked at in the first part of the exam. Although it seemed impossible to me at the time, to my surprise, I apparently got a perfect score. I have too many anecdotes like this to include in a comment, but I am interested in knowing how unusual such phenomena might be. I have heard of the opposite effect, in which people as notable as Winston Churchill forgot everything when sitting an important exam. I love your series; it is the first KZbin series that I have binge-watched.

[@drakewinwest9888]

Can’t believe Hikaru is on this, might but the first person he brought on that I actually know lol.

[@hatjodelka]

Know as in 'heard of' or know as in 'we speak on the phone' ?

[@drakewinwest9888]

@@hatjodelka heard of lol , twitch

[@steveadams1850]

"You don't get any points for understanding it. You get points for filling in the right bubble." That one quote explains the problem with giving standardized tests to children.

[@James-cz5hf]

So Camille won. Got it.

[@gsilcoful]

Very cool.

[@jaein7779]

In certain engineering fields, one must pass the Professional Engineering Test/Exam in order to earn a professional license, akin to a Doctor’s License, that allows one to start their own engineering firm, if one so chooses. I had to take it 3 times to pass. I know of one Lady who took it six times. Win by an inch, win by a mile, it doesn’t matter, just win. I will profess that the main thing I got out of studying for my PE License was familiarizing myself with the various reference books I had to use to pass the test. It was grueling. 8 hours, 80 questions, you could only spend 6 minutes per question. Except for the reference material and the concepts I had to learn, the whole 6 min per question seemed pointless. I understand it’s a form of economic protectionism, but still seemed pointless. My boss would strangle me if I only spent 6 min thinking about a design choice for a civil engineering problem.

[@judyfeuerbach4199]

Does it make me a Hare if I can't wait for part II ? 😁

[@bthomson]

In good company at least! 🕴🚶🏃💃

[@davidwilkie9551]

Qualifications for revision of the eternal question. Our nervous system is arranged to react quickly to a range of senses, in the Eternity-now context of sense-in-common.., so if we are primed to recognise the given circumstances, the e-Pi-i sync-duration connectivity in which we are embedded and tuned to nervously, several nodes of our spines integrate within areas of the brain to present a compound hyper-hypo reaction, reflecting the available circumstance.., all considered according to empirical response time conditions. It's about time.

[@bthomson]

Ah! My thoughts exactly! 😎🤔😑😓🤒😲👽

[@donaldjmccann]

The test may explain the popularity of the American Jeopardy TV show...it is not the most knowledgeable that wins, but the person that answers first.

[@Redmenace96]

Like the LSAT official, I disagreed with MG's use of the word, "arbitrary".

[@Pops2]

Completing a task quickly isn't always optimal.....just ask your girlfriend.😮

[@robertpembroke8902]

The Olympic Sport of Fencing per the Disabled. Before Greg Cuthbert went to the UK we had previously paddled down the Brisbane River and He made a point of ensuring I walked with him up and down a fish ladder. The fish ladder is not quite a ladder and not quite a set of steps and it's more like a graded path. He ended up getting a brain tumor when He was in the UK. He returned with the usual Zorro on the Harold Rammer all over the egg head vis a vis inoperable since has deceased. One of the local kids use to call him egg head and that's what happened. I think it was Neil Martell who gave him that title in primary school long before He went to the UK. With the Fish Ladder walk He might have been trying to imply that the design would offer advantage because it is a transitional design vis a vis not quite a ladder nor steps nor a graded concrete path. You find that there is that Mister In-Between Joke in Holleywood with Bing Crosby per "don't mess with Mister In-between". So I presume He had thought that there was something magical in being an indeterminate subject as do a lot of people these days. Unfortunately, it wasn't much help for him as far as I know(?) You will find that there will be people who presume an indeterminate status will enable the mythologies of rain events hence the encouragement of homonyms in Jokes by state officials. Contrary to that belief is a belief that it is a type of symptom on the prognoses to specific conditions in DSM-V. In a way it is a point in between the nature of magic and science. I'm really fence sitting, aren't I. Did you know that Sit Fencing is an Olympic Sport. People sit in wheel chairs and poke each other with Epees, Foils and Sabres. I'm wondering if it will be included in the Olympic schedule next time (?) I'm sure there will be quite a few disabled people who did fencing when they were able bodied.

[@bobcornwell403]

The best students are not necessarily the best thinkers.

[@carolynp1010]

The converse is also true.

[@Redmenace96]

MG is just preaching against standardized testing in general, not the LSAT. If everyone got as much time as they wanted, and everyone were tested on what they want to be tested on- it wouldn't be a standardized test. And number 2, it is a fantasy. Tell me what job, or what task you are given in your adult life in which the person tells you, "Take as much time as you need." ?? We are all given limited resources to complete our jobs, especially time. Fair, or unfair- that is life.

[@L33PL4Y]

Absurd comment. Nobody said people should be tested on what they want to be tested on or be given as much time as they need. He said standardized testing (meaning all tests are the same) should allow a FAIR amount of time. There's still a deadline and it's still standardized.

[@Redmenace96]

@@L33PL4Y I get you, bro. You want "fairness". I'm sure you want, "equity" and not equality, too. Keep living in your fantasy world, bro. Read "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut and get back to me.

[@L33PL4Y]

@@Redmenace96 Cute baseless assumption, "bro."

[@kevinroach7925]

You’re looking at post secondary education all wrong. In the us it is a great filter to weed out those perceived as week. Actual education is not the point. Btw, thank you for making me just a little smarter.

[@kevinroach7925]

Hence my spelling though I blame the ghost of Steve Jobs.

[@MissyGail4eva]

@@kevinroach7925 no worries, with your aforementioned sentiment, I'm certain you'd be the apple of his eye.. LoL

[@jimmyolsenblues]

We are getting rid of merit to have representation. Good luck younger people. You will need it. Do want the best lawyer the best pilot the best qualified surgeon. Or do you want a racial sexual rep.