This was a very short book, or in my case, audiobook. It also expected you to fill out a test, which I did not do. Driving while listening was not conducive to taking a test. Having said that, I have a pretty good idea where I’d fit in and it isn’t on the optimistic side.
The entire book can be summed up quite quickly. Optimism is better for you than pessimism. Everyone runs into problems, but optimistic people see the problems as temporary and contained rather than permanent and pervasive like a pessimist would. The best way to fight pessimism is to refute the beliefs and if you don’t currently have time to do it, then delay the belief temporarily until you do have time.
There, I saved you the hour of listening to the book. It’s certainly not a bad book and the advice does seem helpful. In part, it’s helpful because it’s so simple. When you have that negative internal voice, you should argue against it. Don’t catastrophize your problems.
So if you do poorly on a test, you might start saying that “this always happens” which is a pervasive thought or you might ask yourself, “why am I so stupid?” which is attributing the problem to a permanent failing. Instead, you should respond that, “no, this doesn’t always happen. I did well on a test last week (or whatever is true)”. It’s not a pervasive problem. To argue against calling yourself stupid, you could say that “doing poorly on one test doesn’t make you stupid. It just means you didn’t study hard enough for it.” You’ve turned a permanent condition into a temporary one.
Overall, I do think it’s good advice with one caveat. There is a risk of making excuses too much in life. The author briefly addresses that risk as well. Personal responsibility is still important and if you’re always making excuses about why everything that goes wrong is someone else’s fault, then you’re not going to grow. The advice in the book is that if you’re scoring really optimistic on the test, you shouldn’t be making any more excuses for yourself. However, if you scored very pessimistic, it’s okay to give yourself a break and make some excuses.
Essentially, find a happy place somewhere in the middle where you can take responsibility for your faults, but realize that they’re not permanent faults and you’ll try to do better.