Blog post on "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky (more book club posts; scroll down)

            In the touching novel, "Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky, Charlie is a high school boy who grows up in many different ways by being exposed to one year of a new school and new friends. Charlie views the world from innocent eyes and an open mind, and I feel that his way of seeing things plays a major part in his adventure of growing up both mentally and physically. I believe that that his friends helping him grow up takes on a major role in Charlie’s life.

            Charlie’s new friends help him mature quicker than he ever would have without them; they expose the good and bad sides of life to him. One example of this is;
“My father came in and sat on the edge of my bed. He lit a cigarette and started telling me about sex. He gave me this talk a few years before, but it was more biological then.” This shows me that Charlie’s understanding and perception is becoming more complex and structured the more he learns from his peers. The more he learns from them, the more he understands how he should grow up, whether he learned from bad or good experiences.

            In all, wallflowers like Charlie might take extra long to grow up and accept who they are because they have no one to confide in. This is why I think that Charlie meeting his friends had a huge impact on his life because they exposed him to life in a way that others couldn’t, and this made him grow up.

blog post on standardized test articles, 4/2/15

Cayla Nardiello 808

            In China you either have a successful life, or you are forced into manual labor and work for a small wage. There is no in-between. In high-school, the rest of your life is determined by a test you take. If you get a low enough score that no university will except you, you are automatically a low wage worker who will most likely do manual labor. In the articles, ‘Standards Raised, More Students Fail Tests’ by Jennifer Medina, and ‘China’s Cram Schools’ by Brook Larmer; I will be comparing the gaokao to any American standardized test that places you in a category and helps determine your future. I think the gaokao is much harder to deal with because if you are even 2 points away from admission into a good college, you will still be forced into a life of manual labor.

            If you fail any American standardized test you still have a chance of success, even though it might not be as high as a student’s chance who did really well. Meanwhile, if you fail the gaokao, you are automatically screwed. Another difference between the two tests is in the article ‘Standards Raised, More Students Fail Tests’; “…a fourth grader had to get 37 out of 70 possible points on the math test to reach Level 3 (out of 4), or grade level. This year, a fourth grader needed to earn 51 out of 70 points to reach that level.” This shows me that American tests are gaokao, but with less severe consequences if you don’t do well. An example from ‘China’s Cram Schools’ is; “Xu scored 643 out of a possible (but never achieved) 750.” This shows me that the highest score is so hard to achieve due to the amount of effort it takes to study, and the difficulty of the exam.

            The two tests both determine your future, even though one has a much bigger impact. One example of this is in the article ‘Standards Raised, More Students Fail Tests’; “This year, anticipating a drop in passing rates, the city sent more struggling students, about 27,000, to summer school.” This shows me that the students who fail an American state test have to re-do their years of education. Another example from the article; ‘China’s Cram Schools’ is; “Cao’s family was heartbroken. His father had worked 12-hour days, 50 weeks a year, building high-rises in eastern China… Cao… would end up on a construction site, just like his father.” This shows that if you flunk the gaokao then you will have no good future career.

            In all, America and China are very different in their testing situations and procedures. They have very different outcomes when you fail the test that is set to determine what rank of society you belong in.