The Emperors Test

How many times have you lied to get out of trouble? In these passages, two characters show us that lying isn't always the best thing to do. “The Emperors Test,” was set in a distant land, far away, however, “The Mystery Ingredient,” was set in modern times. Even though there is a humongous time gap, there are many similarities between the two stories.

First of all, both stories had a main character who were faced with a challenge. In “The Emperors Test,” Ling was told to raise a seed for a year and bring it back to the emperor. Ling tended to his seed every day and after a year nothing sprouted. “How can I bring the emperor an empty pot.” “It's the only way , his mother insisted.” So ling brought the Emperor the empty pot, …show more content…
Every baker had to use a mystery ingredient in their pastries. Leona started to bake her pastry and after she took it out of the oven she realized that it was ruined and wouldn't work. “Leona glanced at the countdown clock on the wall. Luckily, she had enough time to try once more. She made a second pastry as fast as possible. When Leona took out her second pastry, it was ruined too. She didn't have anymore time to bake anything else so she brought the judge her ruined pastry. Everybody else had the most elegant and beautiful pastries, which made Leona nervous. When the judge came to Leona's dish he said, “We have a winner.” The judge revealed that the mystery ingredient would ruin everyone's pastries, so Leona won because everyone else cheated.

These two passages are different because “The Emperors Test” was set a long time ago, which means that they had no technology and life was a lot different than in the present. In “The Mystery Ingredient,” Leona got her chance by watching Chef Fiore on the TV with her grandmother. Ling got his chance by hearing through the community that there was a contest to be the emperor. Even though they both got their chances it would've been a lot harder for ling than