Page 108 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

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chunking versus choking:

How to Increase Your Expertise and Reduce

Anxiety

ew inventions almost never initially appear in their fully formed glory.
N Rather, they go through many iterations and are constantly being
improved. The first “mobile” phones were about as portable as bowling balls.
The first clumsy refrigerators were cranky devices used by breweries. The

earliest engines were overbuilt monstrosities with about as much power as
today’s go-karts.
Enhancements come only after an invention has been out for a while and
people have had a chance to mess with it. If you have a working engine on hand,
for example, it’s a lot easier to improve any particular feature or add new ones.
That’s how clever innovations such as engine turbocharging arose. Engineers
realized they could get more power and bang for the buck by stuffing more air

and fuel into the combustion chamber. German, Swiss, French, and American
engineers, among many others, raced to tweak and improve the basic idea.

Did you remember to skim ahead and check the questions at the end of the chapter to
help to help you start building chunks of understanding?

How to Build a Powerful Chunk