Examined Life free essay sample

Kaplan was not satisfied with just passing tests himself, when he observed his fellow classmates struggling he helped them as well. Kaplan believed that every test should be studied for and he believed that just getting a good score wasn’t enough. He was confident in his abilities even to the point when he felt he was given an incorrect grade, he went to his professor and expressed his displeasure, only to find out that there had been a mishap when the professor was correcting the papers and his paper had been switched with a student that did not measure up to his academic perseverance. He was so confident that he said the â€Å"H† in his name Stanley H. Kaplan stood for â€Å"Higher scores! † Gladwell mentioned in his essay that when Kaplan was introduced to the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) by a student in 1946, and informed that the test was not to be studied for, Kaplan was puzzled and set out to prove that this test, just as every test he had encountered in his educational journey, could in fact be studied for and coached. We will write a custom essay sample on Examined Life or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Kaplan did the absolute opposite of what the creators of the test intended. Gladwell also expresses in his essay that Kaplan grilled the student over and over on the subjects that were to be on the test, and as a result the student was very at ease with the thought of taking the test and approached it with confidence. The student was very happy with what Kaplan had done for her and testified to all her classmates and friends of Kaplan’s methods. The word spread throughout Brooklyn and this catapulted Kaplan into nationwide recognition in the educational world. Malcolm Gladwell did his homework in preparation for writing his essay and proving his point. He incorporated the accounts of anti-test taking supporter David Owen, with a few examples from his books â€Å"None of the Above† which is a revision of his book â€Å"The Truth About the SAT†. The book, written by Owen, states that if you’ve never seen the S. A. T. before, it might be difficult to guess the right answer, but if an individual had exposure and had the opportunity to practice for the SAT and assimilate its ideology the individual could pretty much predict the answers to the questions. He also incorporated SAT critics to support his belief. This account was taken from Gladwell’s argument: â€Å"Critics of the S. A. T. ad made a kind of parlor game of seeing how many questions on the reading-comprehension section (where a passage is followed by a series of multiple-choice questions about its meaning) can be answered without reading the passage. † This particular statement encouraged my decision to agree with this argument. The critics of the SAT made somewhat of a mockery of the test in my opinion. This essay helped me to see the SAT’s predictability in its composition and I agree with Kaplan that every test should be studied for and that if given the opportunity to preview the SAT it could, in fact, be coachable and studied for. Gladwell made his argument believable and I strongly agree with his observation that Stanley H. Kaplan ruined the SAT. Stanley H. Kaplan set precedence with his coaching and tutoring ability of the SAT. He tore down a wall that was put in place to dictate who should and should not do well on a test. I, for one, believe that all people have a right to do well and that Stanley H. Kaplan did all college bound students a tremendous service.