The Erudite Girl

The Second Test

"Okay everyone, listen up!" Lindsey's voice jolted me out of my thoughts. By now we were in a completely white corridor with no windows, facing a door. Lindsey was standing up front and all the initiates were circled around her. I shivered, acutely aware of my lack of sweater. Thankfully though the energy bar had taken an edge of my hunger so I wasn't quite so distracted.

"This next part of the test is a written portion which is going to basically test your IQ. If you don't achieve a certain score, in a certain amount of time, you won't make the cut." Immediately my stomach dropped. I've always prided myself on knowing things but this was going to tell me if I was really smart.

Macey seemed to be thinking the same thing that I was. Her face had gotten very pale. If I were Amy or Grace I would have known exactly what to say to make her feel better, but I didn't so I kept my mouth shut.

"Follow me," Lindsey shouted over the worried talking that had now broken out. She opened the door and led us into an almost identical room. All it had in it was a teacher's desk at the front, completely clear except for an automatic timer. Facing that were rows of identical desks with nothing but a precisely sharpened pencil on them.

Lindsey walked up to the front of the room, Joe following behind her. "Everyone take a seat!" he said. I looked at Macey and we both slid into identical seats near the door. The other dauntless boy slid next to her and Lilac and Ellie sat on my other side. I swallowed down the nerves that threatened to consume me. I had to pass this test. I had to. I couldn't become Factionless, not after I had gotten into the compound.

Without talking Lindsey extracted a bucket of papers from underneath her desk and began to pass them out. It looked extremely thick and had nothing on the front except the words Erudite Initiation Test, Confidential Document.

"Okay, now listen up. The test has 2 sections, knowledge and intelligence. You have three hours and only three hours to complete each section. It's 200 questions per section with mostly short answer, a couple multiple choice, and 5 essay questions per section. Are there any questions?"

One of the Erudite-born boys raised their hand. "How many questions do you have to answer correctly to be admitted?" I was starting to get really scared. 400 questions? In 6 hours? I hadn't had any food besides an energy bar since this morning and I was exhausted and cold. How was I going to do this?

The faces around the room mirrored my own as they stared disbelievingly at the test in front of them. Macey looked like she was going to be sick.

Lindsey looked at the boy coldly. "That's not what matters, is it? You're Erudite you're supposed to get them all right. Any other questions?" A heavy silence filled the room. "No? Okay, then you're test starts... now." She pushed the button on the timer and immediately the room was filled with sounds of paper opening.

I opened my paper too, a feeling of dread in my stomach. The first question looked simple enough. The question was:

What was the first event in the start of World War III?

a.) The bombing of the White House.

b.) The Anti-terrorist United Nations meeting

c.) The fall of Isis

d.) The bombing of Pearl Harbor

That was easy. I knew the answer to that question was most likely b, the anti-terrorist United Nation meeting. This was just something we had learned in school, something you'd see on a test. I flipped through the packet. Most of the questions were like that, things that we learned in school. As I flipped through the packet I noticed that they got increasingly harder, but not having to think super hard, just hard to remember how to answer the question. That's when the words that Lindsey had said came back to me. The test has two sections, knowledge and intelligence. This was obviously testing me to see how much knowledge I had on these subjects.