It's probably an allusion to Amanda Ripley's experience with taking the PISA test herself, described at the start of the book. To wit:
"Several questions like this one asked for my opinion, followed by rows of blank lines for writing my answer; that was odd. Since when did a standardized test care about anyone's opinion?
"Other questions reminded me of problems I'd encountered as an adult--having to decipher the fine print of a health-care policy before choosing it, or comparing the fees of checking accounts offered by competing banks. It seemed more like a test of life skills than school skills.
"All the math formulas were provided, thank God, including the value of pi. But I noticed that I had to really think about my answers. When I tried to speed through a math section, I had to go back and erase several answers."
"PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate; in other words, the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with information and subject to sudden economic change. What did it mean for a country if most of its teenagers did not do well on this test? Not all of our kids had to be engineers and lawyers, but didn't all of them need to know how to think?
"I still didn't believe that PISA measured everything, but I was now convinced that it measured critical thinking."
"Several questions like this one asked for my opinion, followed by rows of blank lines for writing my answer; that was odd. Since when did a standardized test care about anyone's opinion?
"Other questions reminded me of problems I'd encountered as an adult--having to decipher the fine print of a health-care policy before choosing it, or comparing the fees of checking accounts offered by competing banks. It seemed more like a test of life skills than school skills.
"All the math formulas were provided, thank God, including the value of pi. But I noticed that I had to really think about my answers. When I tried to speed through a math section, I had to go back and erase several answers."
"PISA demanded fluency in problem solving and the ability to communicate; in other words, the basic skills I needed to do my job and take care of my family in a world choked with information and subject to sudden economic change. What did it mean for a country if most of its teenagers did not do well on this test? Not all of our kids had to be engineers and lawyers, but didn't all of them need to know how to think?
"I still didn't believe that PISA measured everything, but I was now convinced that it measured critical thinking."