A graduate-level mathematics problem set—something I have plenty of experience with—is about as pure an exercise in deliberate practice as you’re likely to find. You’re given a problem that you have no idea how to solve, but you have to solve it or you’ll get a bad grade, so you dive in and try as hard as you can, repeatedly failing as different avenues lead you to dead ends. The mental strain of mustering every last available neuron toward solving a problem, driven by the fear of earning zero points on the assignment, is a nice encapsulation of exactly what the deliberate-practice literature
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