A More Realistic Fred And Ginger Problem

[David Sklansky]

Fred is quick to grasp all mathematical concepts. Give him a bunch of well written math books in the proper order and he can zip through them with full understanding.

Ginger can't do this nearly as well. She struggles with certain types of concepts and occasionally needs some tutoring. But unlike Fred, she sometimes does more than merely understand. She anticipates what will be said. She often can derive the proof of a concept first mentioned before she actually reads that proof. She realized completing the square yields the quadratic equation. That repeating fractions proves that the harmonic series diverges. She figured out Euclids's proof for primes before reading about it. And that if a calling frequency does equally well if he always bluffs or never bluffs it will do the same no matter how often he bluffs. As she gets into higher math she continues to anticipate and come up with proofs before she reads them.

But unlike Fred she hits roadblocks. Explanations do not always come easy to her. And she would take three times as long to learn the stuff that Fred learned. And would not score as well on many tests.

Does her extra creativity mean that she is smarter?