Test Dummy
| Test Dummy | |
|---|---|
| (Intermission) | |
 | |
| Chapter | “95.1” of 129 (list of chapters) |
| Published | February 27, 2017 |
| Page count | 2 |
| Major characters | Jordan, Augustus |
| Collected in | Volume Six |
| Chapter navigation | |
| ← Love Again | Unspoken Rule → |
| Read chapter | |
Jordan finally finishes his practice test, and for one glorious sparkle-filled panel he is on top of the world. Then Augustus looks up from the next desk. This two-page intermission covers a single study session, in all its demoralizing glory.
Synopsis
Jordan has a library desk buried in textbooks, and he is giving this practice test everything he’s got. He sweats, he squints, he scribbles furiously, and at last he springs to his feet with sparkles in his eyes: “I did it!! The practice test is complete!!”[1]
“Except that answer’s wrong.” Augustus, parked at the desk next to him, gets straight to fixing it.[1] He talks Jordan through the problem, subtracting bonuses from a $3,000 total and jotting the algebra into Jordan’s notebook. Jordan tries his best to follow along. It doesn’t go well. The color drains right out of him, and Augustus’s explanation fades into the background as his attention gives out.[2]
Augustus caps the session by pointing at the notebook: “That one’s wrong too.” Jordan slumps onto the table, head in his hands.[2]
Character dynamics
- Augustus and Jordan: The two of them have known each other for about a day. Jordan recruited Augustus the same evening he moved into the family’s guest room, reasoning that the guy who saved his sister could save his grades too.[3] Augustus writes out every step and genuinely wants Jordan to get there. He helps, but he announces wrong answers flatly and without ceremony, flattening Jordan in roughly equal measure.[2]
Trivia & observations
- Veronica researched a real practice SAT question for the chapter, according to Oliver’s commentary under the last page. Oliver, “a law school kid who dropped mathematics as soon as they let me,” then found a different problem that made more sense to him and rewrote Augustus’s dialogue around it. He joked that his “rudimentary algebra… probably gets all the words wrong. (Jordan, you’re not alone.)”[2]
- Augustus is out of his usual all-black outfit for once, wearing a blue hoodie with a basketball surrounded by stars on it.[2] Basketball hoodies become his go-to casual wear from here. He turns up in a red one with a flaming basketball in Unspoken Rule, and the look keeps recurring after that.[4][5]
- Jordan has been on-panel since the very first chapter, Simple Pleasures,[6] but this is the first time he’s been one of only two characters in a chapter.[1]
Related chapters
- Love Again: The study sessions were arranged on the final page there. Augustus has just been given the guest room at Lucy’s house when Jordan pounces, begging “you saved my sister, save me too!” and asking for a little help with his SATs.
- Unspoken Rule: Straight after this, Augustus heads to the public library to cram for his own SATs and mentions that Jordan is supposed to be there with a few friends. The study sessions are already a fixture.
- College Material: After all that prep, Jordan, Augustus, Lucy and Daisy sit the actual SAT. Jordan bombs it, and his one consolation is that he gets to retake it next year.
- Sugar Substitute: Jordan is back in a library grinding SAT prep in this later intermission, with Matt in the tutor’s chair instead. Matt tells him he’s “gonna ace the SATs or die trying,” and Jordan copes about as well as he does here.