Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Reading Check and Short Answer questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Introduction-Chapter 2

Reading Check

1. What is a “kouros”?

2. In 1983, how much did the Getty Museum pay for an inauthentic kouros?

3. How long did it take the Getty Museum’s technical team to determine that the kouros was a fake?

4. What is the name of the researcher who manages a “love lab” near the University of Washington campus, as described in Chapter 1?

5. As discovered in the “love lab,” what did researchers learn is the minimum ratio of positive to negative feelings that a couple should have for a successful marriage?

6. During World War II, the British used thousands of women as interceptors of German Morse Code transmissions. Before long, the women learned to recognize individual operators by their “fist.” What is “fist,” in this context?

7. What did tennis coach Vic Braden have a knack for predicting about a tennis player’s serve?

8. What physical sensation does art historian Bernard Berenson feel when he is in the presence of a fake piece of art?

9. In Chapter 2, Gladwell writes about those who experience damage to a particular part of the brain, which makes them unable to experience intuitions.