Your Time is Almost Up.

Recently, I've started reading The Testing.  It's a dystopian novel- like lots of more recent books, but that doesn't mean it isn't good- and it's about a girl, Cia, who gets chosen to test to try to get into the University.  I found it interesting that in the whole country, there is only one college to go to.  It's so different from what we know, where there are tons of colleges throughout the US and many of them aren't even that selective.  For example, a quote says, "Five of us from my grade were selected and tested.... I was the only one who made it to the University." (Charbonneau 6)  This quote shows that you have to be incredibly smart in order to even be selected for Testing, and even better to get into the University.  However, in Cia's world this makes sense, since society is coming out of a war and the land has been completely ruined, only the best and smartest minds will be very useful to putting things back in order.  The life we know is nothing like this.  Almost anyone can go to college, and most of the time there isn't a special test you have to pass.  Your application just has to look good to Admissions Officers.  But like I said before, for us this makes sense.  The US is not completely destroyed; we aren't in the process of rebuilding society from scratch.  Maybe the most intelligent minds will be more useful, but everyone can have their place in the country.