Elon Musk-Ch 3

Day 2

Chapter 3 Canada

gumption

gump‧tion /ˈɡʌmpʃən/ noun [uncountable]

the ability and determination to decide what needs to be done and to do it

At least she had the gumption to phone me.

原文参考：

I was not in the habit of getting out-of-the-blue requests,” he said. “I was perfectly prepared to have lunch with a couple of kids that had that kind of gumption.

ascertain

as‧cer‧tain /ˌæsəˈteɪn  ˌæsər-/ ●○○ verb [intransitive, transitive]

formal to find out something SYN establish

A postmortem was ordered to try to ascertain the cause of death.

ascertain whether/what/how etc

Tests were conducted to ascertain whether pollution levels have dropped.

ascertain that

Police had ascertained that the dead man knew his killer.

ascertain something from somebody/something

You should ascertain the level of insurance cover from the car rental company.

原文参考：

After one economics exam, Musk, Farooq, and some other students in class came back to the dorms and began comparing notes to try to ascertain how well they did on the test.

南非确实太安逸，物阜民丰，稳定少有创造力。

加拿大部分暴露了马斯克作为一个实干家的野心和执行力，很多事情并非一开始计划得天衣无缝才执行，却总能在困境面前灵活处理。

另外很喜爱这段中，多角度展现的埃隆，也会判断失误，即使升学以后不再遇到莫名的冷落和霸凌，依然是所求不得，有缺陷有血肉的立体形象。