School to a neighborhood and a zip code they ended up

school to a neighborhood and a zip code, they ended up with a map of every high-achieving low-
income high school senior in the country. Hoxby and Avery discover that there are about 35,000
students a year who place very high in standardized testing. The premise that, capitalization in
the United States is not as good as people think it is, is backed up here by this fact that there are
thousands of students who do not get the opportunity to use their potential to the fullest. This
applies to logos as Gladwell explains his reasoning through statistics and facts.
Good ethos is provided when Gladwell uses good judgement to say, “A society’s capitalization
rate is the percentage of people in any group who are able to reach their potential. I think I have a
better handle on how well a country is doing than if I know it’s GDP, or its growth rate, or its
per-capita income.” Gladwell is basing his argument on the definition of capitalization and thinks
that it is the most accurate piece of data when analyzing how successful a country’s society is,
not GDP, or its growth rate, or its per-capita income. Gladwell’s thought of capitalization is
something that the audience will agree is worth addressing. This quote and use of ethos

contributes to Gladwell’s argument because it shows how aware/knowledgeable he is about
capitalization, which helps his credibilitywhen the audience are determining if he can be trusted
or not. Gladwell also uses a lot of outside sources throughout this podcast interview. He uses the
trust in Carlos’ personal story and Eric’s, story, as the basis to fulfill his argument. He also uses
ethos as he is citing experts in his podcast. Gladwell is putting a lot of trust in these sources
because he is relaying the information in his podcast. He chose the people he interviews wisely
so that he can get the most effect out of the subject.
It’s also just incredible how he is able to draw connections. Gladwell is great at asking good
questions. Through those questions, he draws the connection from the efforts of college
admissions to Carlos’ story elegantly and concisely. It’s quite impressive.
Overall, Gladwell’s podcast was so captivating to listen too. His narration of Carlos’ story had
me shocked and at the edge of my seat the whole time. Gladwell’s structure was organized in an
effective way and I appreciated his use of ethos and logos for credibility to explain his logic.
Thanks for listening to Olivia Breaks it Down, join us again next week, you won’t want to miss
it.