Extraordinary Abilities Essay

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Everyone has certain abilities and some are better than others. In other words, some are extraordinary compared to others. Extraordinary is very self explanatory. It just means something is more than ordinary. Can abilities be extraordinary? Of course they can, but the question is one born with them or does one develop them? Extraordinary ability is something one must develop. In the excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers" it demonstrates one must prepare themselves to do and be extraordinary. The excerpt brings up a study that was done in the early 1990s by the psychologist K. Anders Ericsson and two colleagues at Berlin's elite Academy of Music. In the study, they divided the school's violinists into three groups. The first group were the stars, second group were the merely good and the third group were the ones that were most likely to never play professionally. Then, all three groups were asked similar question, but only one question had three different answers. The question was how many hours have you practiced. The third group, the ones that were most likely to never play professionally, practiced a total of four thousand hours by the age of twenty. The second group, the merely good, practiced a total of eight thousand hours. The first group, the stars, practiced an overwhelming total of ten thousand hours. Just by looking at these hours one can see extraordinary abilities come from development, preparation and practice. The study also proves that the magic number is ten thousand hours, which supports the phrase practice makes perfect. Many people think autism is more of a gift than a disorder. They believe autism allows one to do extraordinary things. However, autism doesn't really allow one to be extraordinary. In “Book Review: Life as an

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