The True Meaning Behind the Marshmallow Test

Children now a day are tested in so many different ways for different disorders or problems, but do we really know what the results actually resemble. For example what does the famous Marshmallow Test really show in its results?  This simple test created by psychologist Dr. Walter Mischel includes a child being given a marshmallow from an instructor and in return if the child doesn’t eat the treat within 15 minuets he or she will be given an additional treat.  So as we can guess some kids waited and others did not but it wasn’t the results that aren’t clear, it’s the meaning of them.

Life throws challenges at a single person each day, but with the help of self-control we can accomplish these problems. There are not a lot of test that can explore a person’s ability to resist temptation, but the Marshmallow test certainly does.  Dr. Walter Mischel states that the results show a child’s strength  to control its impulses when confronted with a stressful situation. By the child not eating the treat and showing techniques to delay gratification, a reflection of how he or she will act later on in life in a stressful, is shown “I was watching this miracle that occurs when our kids … really begin spontaneously to show dramatic changes in their ability to control their impulses,”(Hadad).

This seems logical and accurate opposed to other theories from scientists stating “longitudinal studies show is that children who come from an environment where they have learned to be more trusting have better life outcomes”(Elharo). This theory is illogical because children grow up in all different environments that have opposing types of living styles which conflicts with their everyday reasoning. For example a child whom comes from a suburban community might trust others because his environment is small and everyone in his community is trustworthy. While a child from an urban community choses to trust few people because of the lack of trust in his large environment. It all depends on how your child is raised and the influence of its environment when it comes to how easily someone will trust another, not a marshmallow test. This would simply  be the wrong test for trust issues unless you pick children from the same neighborhood or community.

The right test would be “Rational snacking” done by Celeste Kidd, Holly Palmeri, and Richard N. Aslin from the University of Rochester. This a test where children were separated into two group to do art, where the instructor would give them some supplies and say he will return with more in 15 mins. In one case he did and in other he didn’t. Following this they took the same kids and instructor in each group and preformed the Marshmallow test. Now we can see why it becomes a trust issue problem because the children already have met the instructor once and saw if he was true to his word or not. Sadly this is not the same as the original Marshmallow test so trust doesn’t get tested, but  self-control is.

This is important for a parent to know so a child can achieve help to gain  self-control “I realized that I didn’t have a clue about what was going on in my children’s heads that allowed these changes to occur and that’s what I wanted to understand.”(Hadad). With a parent having their child placed into PROGRAMS that build up his her ability to control their impulses they are easy placing him on better path to succeed in life. Now it is helpful for a parent to realize this problem ,but it is vital for a child to realize also. Once a child can realize how to delay gratification the sooner he or she is  on a better track to succeed “Preschoolers with good self-control sacrifice the immediate pleasure of a chewy marshmallow in order to indulge in two marshmallows at some later point. Ex-smokers forfeit the enjoyment of a cigarette in order to experience good health and avoid an increased risk of lung cancer in the future”(Delaying). Results show the children who had enough self-control to not eat the first treat had higher grades, were not as addictive, and also were able to hold down more jobs compared to the children whom eaten the treat.

The two main aspects of the results of the Marshmallow Test reveal a child’s delay gratification and self-control. Now the importance of this test is beneficial for a child’s development for example when Dr. Walter Mischel stated “He learned that the techniques that children showed to delay gratification would have a profound effect on them for decades”(Hadad). The sooner a parent realizes that their child lacks skills in either of these subjects are vital to the success of their offspring. If a child eats the treat without waiting he or she can easily receive help by the parent bringing them to a  skill building class on self-control or to meet with a professional to learn aspects of how to control delay gratification such as to “use specific activities designed to teach self-regulation”(Clark), “use appropriate rewards”(Clark), or to simply just “take a break”(Clark).For the children whom already show signs of being able to control themselves the parent needs to stay on top of those attributes. Just because their child now has the skills to control themselves it doesn’t mean that over time those attributes won’t fade away. Once the parent builds on the skills it would advance the development of their offspring to a greater extent. Either way if a child fails the test or doesn’t there is a way to learn from the results, but first you need to know what they actually mean.

Work Cited

“Delaying Gratification.” Science 306.5695 (2004): 369l. Delaying Gratification. Web.

Elharo. “A New Interpretation of the Marshmallow Test.” – Less Wrong. N.p., 05 July 2013. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.

Hadad, Chuck. “What the ‘marshmallow Test’ Can Teach You about Your Kids – CNN.com.’ CNN. Cable News Network, 22 Dec.2014. Web. 02 Mar. 2015.

L, Clark .. “Teaching Your Child Self-Control Skills.” B E H AV I O R P R O B L E M S 2nd Edition (1996): n. pag. Behavior Problems. Clark.L, July-Aug. 1996. Web.

How Live Robotic Elephants
Were Created

When we attend circuses, we can’t help but admire, even love, the beautiful animals we think are acting naturally. They’re not. The calm and docile animals in their cages, or dancing on tiptoe, were not born in the wild to take orders from humans. Circus animals are trained using abusive tactics to transform them into docile animals. Elephants are brutally broken in different ways to perform for the circuses. Sadly, knowing how they are “trained” ruins the fun of watching them perform. Even worse, we have to admit that our attendance at the performance is the cause of their suffering.

To most training is thought of in a positive light. For instance, when you train a dog you positively reinforce them to go to the bathroom outside. Dog trainers like Amy Jorgensen stand behind the idea of positive reinforcement. In “Positive Reinforcement and Negative Reinforcement in Dog Training,” Jorgensen explains that “trainers who use positive reinforcement, use rewards to encourage the dog to repeat a specific behavior. Rewards can be treats, affection or a toy. As soon as the dog does the desired behavior, the reward needs to be given.” The dog trainers praise the dog with love and affection when they do something correctly.

Although circus trainers pride themselves on using what they call positive reinforcement with the animals. It is in fact the opposite of the positive reinforcement method. In answer to frequently asked questions, the Ringling Bros. Circus claimed that their animals were “reinforced through a system of reward and repetition.” With elephants and other circus animals the training has to be extremely negative all the time because of their wild nature. Trainers need more than a treat and repetition to get wild animals, such as elephants, to stand on their hind legs and dance for an audience. We are beginning to dig deeper into these training practices and beginning to question what circus owners really believe is appropriate training.

In order to hold a successful circus the trainers must inflict p an extensive amount of pain and suffering onto the animals to keep the circuses successful. If elephants have to go through all that pain to be considered “trained” for the shows they are not being trained they are being tortured. They are taken away from their homeland, ripped from their mothers, isolated, and physically injured. This torture does not benefit the animal or make the animal a better elephant in any way shape or form, in fact injures the elephants. This “training” is a form of torture to get the animals to perform the way the circus or zoos want them to perform. Howard Chua-Eoan comments on the training in his article The Elephants Take A Bow, “What more and more people saw as the years went by– was the use of bullhooks. To keep the elephants marching in single file up to the park, trainers whacked them with the ugly metal talons.” Training—or torturing—the animals in this way takes away from what makes them beautiful and what we admire so much: their habitat, compassion, wildness, and freedom.

When they could no longer hide or justify abusing their elephants, Ringling Brothers eliminated all elephant acts from their circuses. The owner of the Ringling Bros., Kenneth Feld, announced that elephants would be eliminated from all circus shows by 2018. Ringling Bros. removing the acts is a way of them acknowledging the wrong they have done to these innocent animals. Charisse Jones reported for USA Today that when Feld was asked about the removal, he said, “When we did so, we knew we would play a critical role in saving the endangered Asian elephants for future generations, given how few Asian elephants are left in the wild. …This decision was not easy, but it is in the best interest of our company, our elephants and our customers.” From his statement above, Kenneth Feld shows remorse for the shrinking elephant population. His comment hints that the elephants from the show die from being “trained,” contributing the the endangered elephants.

It is almost impossible to get Ringling Bros. or their employees to expose the horrors that go on behind the scenes, because if they do they will be loosing out on huge profits that the injured elephants bring in. Thus, Ringling Bros. will always defend themselves and deny any allegations.But if their training process is humane and instructive, they could profit from opening the sessions to a paying audience.

Like many animal centers, the Ringling Bros. Greatest Show on Earth, claim that they treat elephants and all animals in the circus in a humane and loving way. On the Ringling Bros. website they explain the care of the animals as, “the animal care professionals at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey® believe that a positive, healthy environment is the only acceptable and successful method of working with animals.” They claim the only way to get the animals to perform successfully is to allow them time spent with their mother and reward them with positive phrases as they train. “Trainers teach animals routines that showcase their physical abilities and beauty, as well as their distinctive behaviors. Our training methods are based on reinforcement in the form of food rewards and words of praise,” they claim. They are very clear when they explain that each of the animals in the circus are thoroughly cared for and not abused in any way. When the circus trainers teach they young calves the routines they are, again according to Ringling Bros., “tailored to each animal’s natural abilities and individual preferences which we observe during their playtime.” Basically, Ringling Bros. is claiming that each of the elephants routines are only enforcing their acts that they would normally perform in the wild as well.

If elephants are treated like family and only trained through humane tactics why do they not allow fans to watch the training process? This would surely be much more entertaining for viewers than watching elephants stand on one leg. There has to be something circuses are hiding from the public. Ringling Bros. makes a strong case that positive phrases and treats may successfully train some animals like dogs, or cats. Elephants on the other hand are wild animals that are meant to roam up to thirty miles a day and be close with their family of elephants. Some elephants that perform in the circus can weigh up to 7,000 pounds and usually tower over any trainer trying to dominate the animal. When circus handlers attempt to train animals of that immense size solely positive phrases and treats simply just do not cut it. Elephant trainers are constantly being accused of abusing the elephants by bounding their legs with chains and using bullhooks to get the elephants to cooperate. This makes more sense because to get the elephant to follow the routine they must be abused because of their immense size and nature. A website called Humane Review describes the worst case scenario.

The wild animals fare the worst, and elephants top the list in the inherent cruelty that circus animals experience, simply because their size makes transport and housing so confining and unnatural for them. Their training protocols are geared to ensure that the public will never see the underlying abuse, and therefore circus owners remain assured of their wide profit margin after each city stopover.

It is inevitable for circuses to train elephants in harsh ways due to their size, this is the reason that elephants need to be kept out of shows.

Thankfully a former Ringling Bros. employee, Archele Hundley, sees the harm that is being done and speaks out after viewing years of circus trainers mistreating the animals. Hundley teamed up with PETA to make a change when he could not take hearing the agonizing screams from the elephants as they were beaten bloody with bullhooks on a daily basis. He explains to PETA, “I saw handlers deliver a beating … for 30 minutes. She was covered with bloody wounds. I’ll never forget her agonizing screams . . . . Please, never take your children to a Ringling Bros. circus”

Knowing an employee quit his job and felt the need to speak out to put an end to the circus shows just how powerful and cruel these beatings are. These beatings are not just once in a while, or when the animal acts out. The beatings are administered daily from a range of people, “The abuse was not just once in a while—it occurred every day,” says Hundley. “The elephants, horses, and camels were hit, punched, beaten, and whipped by everyone from the head of animal care down to inexperienced animal handlers hired out of homeless shelters.”  These animals do not have a voice and can not stand up for themselves, this is why we must be their voice.

What circus owners do not tell the public is how each individual elephant is “broken” in order to learn each routine. Trainers “positively” use abusive tactics in order to break the elephant. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal activist group, explains this process as, “All four of their legs are tied together so that all they can do for up to 23 hours a day for up to six months is stand on a concrete floor . . . . This is emotionally and physically devastating to a young elephant.” By tying the elephant’s legs together it is preventing the elephant’s natural desire to walk and roam. This is the opposite of the Ringling Bros.’ claim which states that their acts only enforce the elephants natural acts. Also, Ringling Bros. claims that elephants stay with their mothers for the first two years of their life to adjust to the world. AT Humane Review, animal rights activists prove that claim wrong when they expose the heart wrenching process that goes into the birth of a elephant calf. They describe “the very young babies taken from their mothers early so that they can learn the fear of humans and the pain that human handlers can inflict at a very early age, while our species is still able to dominate them.” This is the only way that the circus trainers can implement dominance over the young elephants, and maintain it throughout their lives.

As we begin to realize the cruelty that is placed among these innocent animals we wonder what caused the circus to be this way. There are many obvious causes that explain why elephants are considered a main attraction in circuses, and continue to be to this day. These causes then relay the effects of elephants being beaten brutally in order to remain on top of the circus hierarchy.

For starters, as children we can not wait to go see the elephants because they are beautiful gigantic creatures that naturally entice the us to come see them in the shows. The high demand of the public to see elephants forces the trainers to continuously beat the elephants in order to continue the demand. An advocate for getting elephants out of circuses Matthew Wittmann says, “they’ve been fighting this fight for so long, and for over a century the icon of the American circus was the elephant.” Us going to the circuses and paying the money that we do affects the elephants’ well being because they are being continuously beaten. If we did not have such a high demand to see elephants perform, there would be no need to abuse them.

If we knew the immense cruelty that goes into breaking an elephant, most of us would be shamed away from circuses all together. Today, we are starting to realize the cruelty that is placed upon these beautiful animals and that effects the circus industry. PETA President Ingrid Newkirk commented on the removal of elephants: “These are complex, intelligent animals, and this is a lousy, lousy, dirty, cruel business, and people see that.” The circus and their harmful training tactics ended up hurting themselves because now their main attraction will be gone in just a few short years.

Elephant cruelty has been hidden from the public for as long as circuses have been around. The abuse is inhumane and no animal should be taken out of the wild and beaten to perform for a profit. Now is the time to out the circuses for their wrong doings and for the public to realize what their attendance to these shows is doing to the animals. By Ringling Bros. decision to yank elephants from all circuses by 2018, it shows they are attempting to avoid outrage from the people and possible criminal proceedings. We hope that in the future circuses, without elephants, we are invited to see the real entertainment showcasing the natural beauty of these amazing animals.

Works Cited

Jorgenson, Amy. “Positive Reinforcement & Negative Reinforcement for Dog Training.” Dog Care. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

Chua-Eoan, Howard. “The Elephants Take A Bow.” Bloomberg Businessweek 1 Mar. 2015. Print.

Jones, Charisse. “Ringling Bros. Eliminating Elephant Acts.” USA Today. Gannett, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 25 Mar. 2015.

“Animal Care FAQ.” Animal Care FAQ. N.p., 2015. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.

PETA. “Former Ringling Bros. Employee Speaks Out Against Abuse.” PETA. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.

“The Circus — A Nightmare for Elephants.” The Circus – A Nightmare For Animals (2012): 1-4. Humane Review. 2012. Web. 28 Mar. 2015.

Pèrez-peña, Richard. “Elephants to Retire From Ringling Brothers Stage.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 5 Mar. 2015. Web. 6 Apr. 2015.

Multivitamins – Useful or Harmful?

A multivitamin is a supplement that contains multiple vitamins. They are believed to be beneficial to ones health. There are many new researches popping up that apparently show multivitamins are “useless”. With no significant health benefits to speak of, people blindly take these supplements everyday, year after year. One research showed that they did nothing for heart health, another found that they did nothing to mitigate or prevent cognitive decline, and another showed they did not decrease the chances of an early death. These studies were all done not too far apart from each in as far as time goes. Studies also show that a third of American adults take a multivitamin on a daily basis.

The reason researchers and nutritionists are finding these multivitamins useless is because they say we get all of the nutrients and vitamins we need from the foods we eat. Granted these days there are much less healthy, less fortified foods available, the foods we cook and eat at the dinner table provide all the nutrients we need according to researchers. Therefore, they feel that any extra from a supplement would result in an excess amount. Now there is an entire different situation when you can actually be harmed from something that is suppose to be helping you. Studies show that men who took high doses of vitamin E had higher risk to have prostate cancer. Another study from the Iowa Study showed that Iron could be harmful to pregnant woman.

But what could bring about such an oversight? Wouldn’t the companies that produce these products know that they are not effective if they are in fact useless? The companies that produce these supplements are well aware of what they can and can not do. They know that their products yield no significant results. These vitamins are not cheap either. You can easily end up paying 50 dollars or more for just a few bottles. Separate studies in 2009 and 2011 indicate that multivitamins have no positive effects on an individual’s health. With that said, we can see how people can end up wasting hundreds maybe even thousands of dollars a year. A given company can make millions perhaps even in the billions every year for continuing what they do. Collectively, the public spends about $28 billion a year on vitamins. Obviously, they would not stop putting this stuff into the public when they are making this kind of money from it. It is not an oversight, it is carelessness perhaps even evil. A study posted in New England Journal of Medicine in 1994 showed that I large amount of Vitamin A with carotene can increase the risk for lung cancer.

These days, people are lazy. They want to be able to live how they want and not deal with any consequences as well. Many people for this very eat foods that are not very healthy and beneficial and try to fill in the nutrient “gaps” with multivitamins. Maintaining your health is more important than your favorite foods. It takes mostly exercise and a healthy diet. However, society is becoming more fast paced so things are getting “sloppy”. Much of the earths air is polluted, food is made cheap, fast, and therefore with chemicals harmful to the human body. These foods also lack the vitamins and nutrients that naturally come with it in a natural form. Companies knowing this continue to put these supplements into the public As I said before they do it for the money because they are not around the damage it can cause. Not even the FDA, the organization that is supposed to monitor the food forces these companies to stop[ putting out useless and sometimes harmful product.

Taking vitamins has become an everyday thing for a lot of people. When you believe these supplements help, it is easy to get into a cycle of waking up popping two or three pills along with your breakfast and coffee. Numbers show that fifty percent of the american population takes multivitamins on a regular basis. Older, wealthier people are more likely to take vitamins. Vitamin use also raises with education. People also continue to take multivitamins due to force of habit. Others do not know that they are ineffective. The placebo effect can also come into play when you everyone says this supplement helps them and you want it to help you.

Of course you can get all of the vitamins and minerals you need from the good fortified foods. Foods including, leafy greens, broccoli, spinach, salads, etc. The article “Interaction and Warnings” tells us specific functions of some vitamins. Natural food has vitamins such as Vitamin C, Vitamin, E, Vitamin A, etc. They help the body carry out its regular functions and work properly. Without getting a proper balance of vitamins and minerals, a person could p[possibly develop a deficiency of some sort. At that point you would have to seek medical attention. Vitamin A is important for growth and helps the immune system. Vitamin E can be good for the heart and blood vessels but dangerous in large amount like many other fat soluble vitamins.

There are two kinds of vitamins. According to “Medicine.net”, fat soluble vitamins and water-soluble vitamins. Water soluble vitamins are stored in the kidneys and urinated out in excess. Fat soluble vitamins are stored in many organs and can cause much harm in excess. Both of these kinds of vitamins are needed but in excess they are urinated out or just a waste of money. Also, as I previously stated, they can cause harm to the body.

If we get all of the vitamins we need from the foods we eat, any supplements is a waste of money and could possibly cause health problems. Its possible in the near future these companies begin making their product cheaper to make even more money and this can cause more health problem. So if you have more people getting sick and the same or many even more people regularly taking the vitamins, this nation is in bad shape. With this in mind, the useless product should be banned and not allowed to be sold. There are other options for increasing ones health. I wonder if it would even be worth trying to get all these people to stop taking multivitamins.

All this evidence and research is hard to deny to say the least. Hopefully this research will cause people to stop investing in such a product. This will only give these companies more money, more power and they will continue to produce the same or even worse products. There are however experts that say multivitamins are effective and worth the money they cost. It is possible that these experts have not seen or done proper research or perhaps they are working with or for the companies that produce the multivitamins. Author Kathleen Zelman is a person who believes multivitamins are beneficial to fill in the nutrition “gaps” so many people have. Her view is just one of many.

Works Cited

“Diet and Nutrition Tips for Healthy Eating, Diets.” MedicineNet. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Oz, Mehmet. “Taking Too Many Vitamins Can Be Dangerous – Excess Supplements – Dr. Oz – AARP.” AARP. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Swift, Art. “Half of Americans Take Vitamins Regularly.” Half of Americans Take Vitamins Regularly. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

“Vitamin E: Uses, Side Effects, Interactions and Warnings – WebMD.”WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

“Water Soluble Vitamins vs Fat Soluble Vitamins.” MedicineNet. N.p., n.d. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.

Zelman, Kathleen. “How to Choose a Multivitamin Supplement.” WebMD. WebMD, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

“The Marshmallow Test Causes Lasting Effects”

The Marshmallow Test was a study of nursery children to see if they had the ability to challenge their temptations. A marshmallow was put in front of them on a plate and the child had two options-to either wait fifteen minutes and receive another, or to eat the marshmallow right away. Many children have a difficult time restraining their needs, and not realizing what the consequences might be in the future. Children, especially nursery aged, do not know or realize that they have or can have willpower. Some might have it without realizing. For example, if a child does wait those fifteen minutes to receive another marshmallow, they are resisting their temptations no matter how hard it is. This test is an experiment of self-control and the remarkable long-term outcomes of the data that was recorded and observed.

Willpower is to have control of one’s impulses and actions; self-control. However, willpower is also “the ability to resist short-term temptations in order to meet long-term goals.” In this case, children who were able to resist eating the first marshmallow grew up into teenagers who received higher SAT scores and were seen as having the ability to better stay in relationships than the children who ate the marshmallow in the first thirty seconds. The man behind this 1960’s experiment goes by the name of Dr. Walter Mischel, who in fact noticed that the children who were able to wait for the second marshmallow displayed creative ways of distracting themselves. The distractive behaviors suggest that the children with greater willpower have a higher sense of creativity. The results were incredible; the preschoolers who were able to control their temptations have a lower BMI, lower rates of addiction, a lower divorce rate and were able to conquer stress in their future. However, Mischel does not lose any faith in the preschoolers who immediately ate the first marshmallow saying, “I have no doubt that self-control skills … are imminently teachable.”

For instance, “If you’re a smoker and as you approach the cigarette you’re thinking lung cancer … and imagining it very vividly, your picture of your lung with a black spot and your physician telling you ‘I’m so sorry to have to tell you etc.’ that visualization can be very powerful,” said Mischel. Mischel believes that techniques of self-control can be taught and learned at any age. But the question is why can some people resist their temptation, while others cannot? Suppose an individual needed to make some fast money and had two options in mind, having a healthy and steady job and having the salary $8 an hour or seeking out a secretive “spot” to help drug addicts fight their withdrawal symptoms making $1000 a day. The natural human instinct is to make the most money in a short amount of time, but what people do not realize in their moment of decision, is their long-term goals in contrast to short-term temptations.

For children to recognize this concept and understand how they can apply it to their everyday decisions can have a major impact on their lives and shapes them as individuals. According to Marina Chaparro, RD, one of the best things about willpower is that growing self-control in one areas of your life leads to other positive changes. Willpower changes the way people think. For instance, going to the gym may lead to eating healthier. Willpower is not innate, however it is similar to a muscle in a body where it can be strengthen over time. Yet, unlike muscles, willpower can be affected by emotions. If the child had a tough day, he/she might just eat the first marshmallow to make his or her day seem a bit better. Short-term temptations are diseases, cravings, thoughts that are turned into actions without rethinking about what the outcomes might be.

The Marshmallow Test is in fact a study testing children’s’ willpower and their self-control. Willpower has many factors including the child’s parents, the environment they grew up around, and if they have the ability to trust. Waking up everyday to the same surroundings shapes the way people think and act, and the people show them who to trust and who to look past. Growing up in an environment where children only know that the norm of their society is to have things and items taken away from them will cause them to grow up with having extremely low expectations and little to no trust in anyone around them.

Works Cited

Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/willpower&gt;.

Manning, Joy. “Willpower: How You Can Get More of It and Why It Runs Out.” WebMD. WebMD, 29 July 2014. Web. 01 Mar. 2015. <http://www.webmd.com/diet/willpower-facts?page=1&gt;.

“Delaying Gratification.” Science 306.5695 (2004): 369l. American Psychological Association. Web. 1 Mar. 2015. <https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/willpower-gratification.pdf&gt;.

Hadad, Chuck. “What ‘marshmallow Test’ Can Teach You about Your Kids – CNN.com.” CNN. Cable News Network, 22 Dec. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2015. <http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/22/us/marshmallow-test/&gt;.