Smarter Than You Think

Question 1

superfluity

“The superfluity of communication today has produced everything from a rise in crowd-organized projects like Wikipedia to curious new forms of expression….” (450)

Answer 1

(n) excess or something unnecessary

Question 2

zingy

“….arguing that the quality of of our thought, as a species, rose in tandem with the ascendance of slow-moving, linear print and began declining with the arrival of the zingy, flight internet.” (455)

Answer 2

exciting

Question 3

quintessential

“It’s the quintessential cognitive activity, logic as an extreme sport” (441)

Answer 3

typical of a particular kind of person or thing

Question 4

nimble

“…even Kasparov’s notoriously aggressive and nimble style broke down” (443)

Answer 4

quick

Question 5

dispel

“On a civic level, it helps dispel traditional political problems like….” (453)

Answer 5

cause to vanish

Question 6

dogma

“Chess players….”are almost as free of dogma as the machines with which they train”” (460)

Answer 6

something held as an established opinion

Question 7

iterative

“The iterative process of thought experiments….sped up exponentially” (460)

Answer 7

involving repetition

Question 8

Caveat:

“I have one caveat to offer.” pg.455

Answer 8

A warning to consider something before taking any more action, or a statement that limits a more general statement.

Question 9

Quaint:
“Or is the question naive and irrelevant—as quaint as worrying about whether we’re “dumb” because we can’t compute long division without a piece of paper and a pencil?” pg. 458

Answer 9

Attractively unusual or old-fashioned.

Question 10

Aphoristic:
“And what a torrent we have: Wikipedia, a global forest of eloquent bloggers, citizen journalism, political fact-checking—or even the way status-update tools like Twitter have produced a renaissance in witty, aphoristic, haikuesque expression.” pg. 454

Answer 10

A pithy observation which contains a general truth.

Question 11

Gist:
“I got into a long instant-messaging session with my wife, during which I realized that I’d explained the gist of advanced chess better than I had in my original draft, so I cut and pasted that explanation into my notes.” pg. 452

Answer 11

The substance or general meaning of a speech or text, or the real point of an action.

Question 12

Endowed:
“Together, they would form what chess players later called a centaur: a hybrid beast endowed with the strengths of each.” pg. 445

Answer 12

To be provided with a quality, ability, or asset.

Question 13

Laboriously pg.459; “Soviet leaders would fly you to Moscow and give you access to their elite chess library, which contained laboriously transcribed paper records of the world’s top games.”

Answer 13

In a way that takes considerable time and effort.

Question 14

Omnipresent pg.453; “First off, there’s the emergence of omnipresent computer storage . . . “

Answer 14

Widely or constantly encountered; common or widespread.

Question 15

Juxtaposition pg.449; “These resources enable us to pursue manipulations and juxtapositions of ideas and data that would quickly baffle the unagumented brain”

Answer 15

The fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect

Question 16

Augmented pg.451; “This is an attempt to understand what’s happening to us tight now, the better to see where our augmented thought is headed”

Answer 16

Having been made greater in size or value

Question 17

Trounced pg.447; “One of the entrants that Cramton and Steohan trounced in the freestyle chess tournament . . . “

Answer 17

Defeat heavily in a contest

Question 18

trounce

Answer 18

to punish