Liting Tang
Professor Elaine Nethery
ISC100NII
2 June 2015
Passport Assignment#1
Question1: Choose an example from the Introduction (Roseto Mystery) or chapter 1 (hockey, soccer, school or a tree in the forest) and give examples of “accumulative advantage”. Highlight at least four factors that support this concept in the example that you have chosen.
In Outliers, the author tells us a story about a hockey player Scott whose father says, “when he was four and five years old, his little brother was in a walker, and he would shove a hockey stick in his hand and they would play hockey on the floor in the kitchen, morning till night. Scott always had a passion for it” (Gladwell 34). Scott started his hockey career when he is very young and one of the vital reasons is that he loves hockey and he has passion. Besides, he played very hard to make progress every day. And Scott’s father also says, “He always made the Triple A teams. As a first year peewee or a first year bantam, he always played on the [top] rep team” (Gladwell 34). We can see that a good head start in Scott’s early age brings him accumulated advantages to lead him to success. Gladwell point out that “passion, talent and hard work” make Scott to be a successful hockey player. However, besides passion, talent and hard work, are there any other things special in Scott’s success? Then Scott’s father recalls, “he was always a bigger kid for his age… And he was always kind of a standout for his age, a captain of his team”(Gladwell 34). Now Gladwell finally find an important element to make Scott, a successful hockey player, “Scott Wasden was born on January 4, within three days of the absolute perfect birthday for an elite hockey player”. Little Scott had a perfect head start, and then he took advantage of it by keeping practice and working hard with his passion. And he always gets positive feedback. Obviously, Perfect head starting, passion, talent and hard work are