Outlier Chapter 8 Summary

     In chapter 8 "Rice Paddies and Math Tests", the author Malcolm Gladwell mainly states that those people who are successful must be persistent and spend countless time doing what they want to do through analyzing the rice paddies and math tests. Firstly, he illustrates the rice paddies' situation in China and shows that Chinese people spend a lot of time growing rice paddies well. He then takes a math test for example. He shows that the big different math system between western countries and Asia leads to that those people who are born in Asia, their math abilities are better than American people, which makes him think about whether it has a connection between growing rice paddies and math abilities. Then, he points out that Western agriculture is "mechanically oriented", which leads that people do not need labor to complete the tasks and the time is always enough. On the contrary, in China or Japan. farmers do not have enough money to buy machines, which leads that they must manage their own time well and make better choice to improve their yield. It is like "skill oriented". According to the comparison of these two different methods in agriculture, the author finds that people who are from Asia use their brain more frequently, which makes them good at math. Besides, he points out that as to the farmer, the harder you work, the more you get. Then, Malcolm uses the "Straight line in coordinate system" experiment carried out by a math professor at Berkeley, called Alan Schoenfeld. Afterwards, he compares the rice paddies with math tests again, then he points out that the reason why math ability of people who come from Asian is better than people who come from America is that Asian people practice more; they insist it and they believe that they can do it well. After he states two examples, he believes that success is made up of persistence to what you want to do and willingness to work hard. Finally, all the things prove that "No one who can rise before dawn three hundred sixty days a year fails to make his family rich"(pp. 224-249).