Summary Of Testing By Joelle Charbonneau

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Although the author takes inspiration from many things, Testing by Joelle Charbonneau takes inspiration from standardized tests. One way the author takes inspiration from tests is the pressure that students feel to do well. For example, the pressure that Rhyme felt to do well caused her to belittle others, and ultimately led to her suicide. After witnessing Rhyme’s death, Dr. Barnes tells Cia, the main character of the book, that “stress is difficult”. Some students handle stress better than others. Some people can’t sleep. Some never eat” (Charbonneau 94). Adding to the pressure of doing well, researchers in real life have found that “pressure to perform well on standardized tests puts an incredible amount of stress on students and teachers alike that only serves to inhibit …show more content…

After the written portion of the testing, the participants start doing hands-on tests. The first one is separating plants that are poisonous from ones that are not.. However, after the testers are doing sorting they need to eat the ones they sorted non poisonous, which could lead to death if sorted wrong. There were many other tests like this, and one of the victims of these tests is Malachi, Cia’s friend. He touched a box that didn’t need to be used, and in return, was poked in the eye with a needle. Because other testers were too scared to try to help him, he soon bled to death. Finally, the author takes inspiration from the competition between students that standardized tests create. The morning that Cia leaves for the testing, her father recounts his experience of the testing saying “‘Some of the kids from my colony were vicious. They’d do anything to be number one’. ‘Poison was a favorite tactic of a couple of the girls in my class.’. ‘Not enough kills. Just enough to make someone too sick to sit for a test’”(Charbonneau

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