Do you know that the United States and its allies had a nuclear weapon race with the Soviet Union (Russia) and its allies after World War II? When the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite called Sputnik 1, Americans felt threatened. They thought that something must have gone so wrong with their education that the United States fell behind the Soviet Union's technological advancement. That was why the student in this essay decided to challenge American schooling.

要了解這個句子，必須先知道兩點文化常識。第一，蘇俄於一九五七年成功地所發射第一枚人造衛星，這枚衛星命名為 Sputnik 1，之後，我們泛指蘇俄所發射的人造衛星為 Sputnik。第二，自從第二次世界大戰之後，美國與蘇俄之間默默展開核武競賽，這種非明白宣戰的競賽被稱為「冷戰」；這場費時多年的冷戰，帶給每美國知識份子一種恐蘇症，深怕自己的國力輸給蘇俄。

了解了這兩點文化背景之後，我們再回過頭來看這個句子，就不難了解，引句中的美國學生，為什麼不滿他所接受的教育方式，而決定挑戰考試制度。