full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kathryn Schulz: On being wrong

Unscramble the Blue Letters

I've spent the last five years of my life thinking about situations exactly like this — why we sometimes misunderstand the sgnis around us, and how we behave when that happens, and what all of this can tell us about hmuan naurte. In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spent the last five years thinking about being wnrog. This might skrtie you as a strange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no job competition. (Laughter) In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid tnihnkig about being wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility that we ourselves are wrong. We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible — okay fine.

Open Cloze

I've spent the last five years of my life thinking about situations exactly like this — why we sometimes misunderstand the _____ around us, and how we behave when that happens, and what all of this can tell us about _____ ______. In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spent the last five years thinking about being _____. This might ______ you as a strange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no job competition. (Laughter) In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid ________ about being wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility that we ourselves are wrong. We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible — okay fine.

Solution

  1. wrong
  2. strike
  3. thinking
  4. signs
  5. nature
  6. human

Original Text

I've spent the last five years of my life thinking about situations exactly like this — why we sometimes misunderstand the signs around us, and how we behave when that happens, and what all of this can tell us about human nature. In other words, as you heard Chris say, I've spent the last five years thinking about being wrong. This might strike you as a strange career move, but it actually has one great advantage: no job competition. (Laughter) In fact, most of us do everything we can to avoid thinking about being wrong, or at least to avoid thinking about the possibility that we ourselves are wrong. We get it in the abstract. We all know everybody in this room makes mistakes. The human species, in general, is fallible — okay fine.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
chinese character 4
avoid thinking 2
present tense 2
stuff wrong 2
beth israel 2
wrong side 2
correct side 2

Important Words

  1. abstract
  2. avoid
  3. behave
  4. career
  5. chris
  6. competition
  7. fact
  8. fallible
  9. fine
  10. general
  11. great
  12. heard
  13. human
  14. job
  15. laughter
  16. life
  17. mistakes
  18. misunderstand
  19. move
  20. nature
  21. possibility
  22. room
  23. signs
  24. situations
  25. species
  26. spent
  27. strange
  28. strike
  29. thinking
  30. words
  31. wrong
  32. years