THE TESTING

WARNING: There is an instance of suicide and other dark content.

BOOK 1: THE TESTING

Much of the world has been destroyed due to war. The United Commonwealth government oversees the various remaining colonies. Every year, top high school graduates from each colony are asked to compete in the Testing. If they pass, they proceed to study at the University and then become a leader for revitalizing the world.

Malencia Vale’s (aka Cia’s) father had once passed the Testing. After he graduated from University, he was assigned to be a leader at Five Lakes Colony (which may be around the former 5 great lakes area?). At first, he was insulted to be assigned there (since Five Lakes Colony has the reputation of being poor), but he met his wife there and enjoyed the life that they built together (including bearing 4 sons and a daughter named Cia). However, it saddens him that he never got to see his parents in his home colony again.

For years, Five Lakes Colony had the reputation of having a small population and being composed of delinquents. But when a new head teacher steps in, a group of high school graduates (including the mechanically-inclined Cia) get invited to compete in the Testing (which isn’t an optional invitation, since declining is considered treason and punishable by death?).

Cia’s father privately tells Cia that he’s concerned about her safety in the Testing since when he went though the first rounds of Testing, some of his competitors were so competitive that they snuck poison in food and handed that food out so that others would get sick during their exams. Also, after he went through the Testing, he had recurring nightmares (even though most of his memories were wiped). His nightmares include him trekking through an abandoned city, where one of his traveling companions got blown to bits during a bomb explosion. It’s hard to say if these nightmares are real or not (since maybe his mind is trying to fill the gaps with something much worse than what really happened), but he wants Cia to be careful regardless.

When Cia arrives at the Testing facility, her experience is as follows:

Before Test 1, her seemingly trustworthy assigned roommate (Ryme) offered her one of her 9 homemade corn cakes. Cia didn’t eat any of them (remembering her dad’s warning that some candidates offer poisoned food to gain an advantage). Cia’s suspicions seem to be confirmed when she sees later that there are always 9 corn cakes (showing that Ryme didn’t want to eat them herself?) and also when Ryme gives Cia some mean remarks.

Test 1 consists of written exams in various subjects: history, math, science, and reading. Those without a high enough score are asked to leave. Before the results are out, Cia is openly honest to her friends that she didn’t finish some questions (instead of feigning confidence), which opens the conversation to others admitting that they didn’t finish either.

After Test 1, Rhyme is found dead in the dorm room from hanging herself (probably succumbing to pressure?).

Test 2 consists of hands-on tests (including sorting plants into “edible” and “non-edible” piles and fixing the wiring of a broken radio). The penalties are deadly (since afterwards, the candidates are asked to eat all the plants that they said were edible, and there is a hidden compartment in the radio that can shoot a nail into your eye if you mess with it).

Test 3 consists of a group test. First, assigned groups take practice questions to gauge one another’s strengths and weaknesses, and then they form a strategy as to who answers which questions. If anyone tries to answer a question that another member worked on, there’s a deadly penalty. In Cia’s group, Roman answers the first practice question right and then doesn’t answer any others right. He goes first and then plants a trap (seemingly by answering all the other questions?). Then, after the second member (Annalise) goes to answer her designated questions, Cia becomes suspicious (both due to the time that it took Roman and Annalise, and due to Roman’s notebook being full of gibberish after the first practice question like he didn’t even try for the rest). Cia merely leaves the testing room without answering her question (and warns the other group member, Brick, about Roman’s potential trap). Cia’s suspicions are correct.

Test 4 consists of journeying hundreds of miles in a fenced-in area until they make it to a finish line. Cia meets up with Tomas (a fellow Five Lakes Colony graduate), and they partner up to make it to the finish line together. During this journey, Tomas confesses his love to Cia. Also, Brick “saves” Cia by machine-gunning down a group of mutated humans (who were mutated from radiation) who were merely observing Cia and weren’t seemingly about to attack until provoked. Also, Will at first seemed trustworthy and as though he was paying off his debt for Cia giving him a tip in an earlier test, but he turned on Cia and Tomas at the last minute to “thin out his competition”. After all, if more than 20 people cross the finish line, the Testing Committee has to make cuts.

Cia is proven time and time again to be compassionate.

She later explains in her final interview (after Test 4) that:

The reason why she tipped Brick off to Roman’s trick was because she is a good teammate.

The reason why she buried (or rather, shoved into cave) Nina during Test 4 (instead of letting her corpse be scavenged by birds) is because she was taught to respect human life.

After the selections are announced, Cia’s memories are wiped. Luckily, she recorded on a voice recorder (one of her personal items from home) stories of the horrendous things she experienced during Testing (which reminds her that the Testing Committee can’t be trusted, as they have been telling the selected that friends who have clearly died during the Testing process are “safely living in another colony”). Even though it’s painful to remember such tragic memories of what happened, such knowledge can help her be better informed for future decisions.

“Do we learn from our mistakes and use that information to carry us successfully to the end of this exam, or will they swallow us under?” (256).

“Maybe that’s the mark of a real leader. Admitting a mistake has been made and finding a way to stop it at all costs” (256).

The questions that remain (that may be answered in the next books) are:

Why were there never any Testing candidates from Five Lakes Colony during all the years when the old head teacher ruled? Did the head teacher not agree with the Testing process and was therefore trying to protect the students?

Will claims that Tomas can’t be trusted (and it seems as though Tomas may have killed one of his and Cia’s former classmates, Zandri, during the final test since her identification bracelet was in his bag, he was acting strange after he and Cia reunited, and he had dried blood on his knife). Is Tomas only pretending to be a good guy?

During the fourth test, Cia encountered a guy with gray hair outside the fence who tossed her bags of food and a vial of a drug that counteracts the truth serum during her final interview (so that she wouldn’t let it slip that her father gave her hints about his experience, or that her older brothers are super smart and should be reevaluated for testing). Why is this random guy helping her?

Why does the Testing Committee not interfere when the candidates’ lives are in danger? Because there’s a camera in Cia’s dorm room, someone should have saw Ryme hanging herself and saved her. And when Cia and Tomas were a mere mile away from the finish line, she had to drag him inch-by-inch (even though they were both in critical condition and had already gone through enough).

Cia had the impression that the University would be a safe haven after she makes it through all the horrors of the Testing process. Is this true, or what challenges await her at University?