mc-med Chapter 21: He was always the first to start writing, and always the first to stop.
Chapter 21: He was always the first to start writing, and always the first to stop.
The principal thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of being the center of attention. He leaned on the podium, his voice rising in cadence: "Lin Yu not only achieved a perfect score at the winter camp, but also demonstrated the strength and talent of Jiangcheng No. 1 High School! Next up is the province-wide joint examination of 100 schools! This is not just an exam, but the most important battle before the college entrance examination!"
The principal suddenly waved his hand.
"I've already pledged to the Municipal Education Bureau! In this provincial joint examination, Jiangcheng No. 1 High School must take first place in the entire province! Lin Yu, do you have the confidence?!"
Moral blackmail.
Extremely crude and blatant moral blackmail.
The principal didn't even communicate with Lin Yu beforehand, and put him on the spot in front of two thousand people.
If they win, it will be a political achievement for the principal; if they lose, Lin Yu will be a sinner against the school.
Standing in front of Class 7, Wang the Bald instantly broke out in a cold sweat. He knew Lin Yu's temper all too well. This guy wouldn't even give face to a professor from Tsinghua or Peking University, so why would he tolerate a high school principal like Lin Yu?
The entire room fell silent. Everyone was waiting for Lin Yu to make his statement.
Lin Yu finally raised his head.
He slowly walked out from the back of the line, through the crowd, and went straight to the nearest portable speaker. He unplugged the wireless microphone from the physical education teacher next to him who was responsible for maintaining order.
"headmaster."
Lin Yu's voice was clear and cold, without any inflection, yet it drowned out the sound of the wind on the playground through the speaker.
"What does your pledge have to do with me?"
A collective gasp of astonishment filled the playground.
The principal's smile froze on his face, and his fat jiggled twice: "Lin Yu, this is about collective honor..."
"My score is defined by myself."
Lin Yu interrupted him, his tone casual yet carrying an absolute sense of pressure, "If I don't want to be number one, no one can force me. I suggest you take down the banner, so you won't be embarrassed when the joint entrance exam results come out."
After saying that, Lin Yu casually tossed the microphone back to the stunned PE teacher and turned to walk towards the teaching building.
"I'm going back to sleep. It's too noisy."
Two thousand people stared in disbelief as that tall, upright figure disappeared at the top of the stairs.
The principal was trembling with rage, pointing at Baldy Wang and roaring, "You...you look at the students you've taught! Disrespectful to their elders! Utterly arrogant!"
Baldy Wang kept his head down, but inwardly he sneered. Why did you provoke him?
In the crowd, Su Qingwan bit her lip tightly, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
After returning from the provincial capital, she was completely marginalized. Li Hao, having been utterly defeated by Lin Yu at the provincial high school, stopped replying to her WeChat messages. Her cherished dream of a privileged social circle shattered.
Now, she has to rely on herself.
The meeting ended in discord.
At noon, the classroom of Class 7 was empty.
Su Qingwan finished her meal early and returned to the classroom to prepare for studying. She walked to the back row, and her gaze involuntarily fell on Lin Yu's desk.
The table was spotless, except for a transparent plastic wastebasket.
On top of the wastepaper basket was a crumpled notebook.
Su Qingwan's heart skipped a beat. She glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then quickly went over and picked up the crumpled paper.
Unfold.
The cover features a few bold, elegant characters in a thin, golden script: Summary of Blind Spots in English Reading and Cloze Tests.
Su Qingwan's breathing quickened instantly.
Lin Yu's notebook! The internal notes of that monster who can score 278 points on the combined science exam and get full marks on university exams!
She turned to the first page.
The page was covered with densely written analyses of various long and complex English sentences, as well as extremely bizarre problem-solving patterns.
"When the word 'however' appears in a cloze test, if any option contains a word that indicates compromise, ignore the context and choose it directly."
"For Reading Comprehension Passage C, if the question stem involves the author's attitude, the option containing 'indifferent' has a 95% success rate."
Su Qingwan felt a chill run down her spine.
Is this Lin Yu's trump card? Is this the secret to his ability to treat exams like a numbers game?
She shoved the notebook into the innermost part of her backpack as if it were a lifeline.
What she didn't know was that the moment she turned to leave the classroom...
Outside the glass window of the back door of the classroom.
Lin Yu leaned against the wall, holding a can of iced cola in his hand, a faint mockery curling at the corner of his mouth.
That was a guide to avoiding pitfalls that he jotted down yesterday—on the error-predicting mechanisms that test creators love to set up.
I originally intended to use Xia Zijin as a negative example.
Since someone likes to collect trash, let her eat her fill.
A province-wide joint examination of 100 schools.
A battleground for 500,000 senior high school students across the province.
The exam papers for this joint exam were set by the provincial education commission, and the difficulty level was directly comparable to the most difficult national exam in previous years. In some aspects, the exam even incorporated innovations.
Jiangcheng No.1 Middle School, Examination Room 1.
Lin Yu sat by the window.
Chinese in the morning, math in the afternoon.
The second day included science in the morning and English in the afternoon.
After two full days of exams, Lin Yu's condition made the other candidates in the exam room feel hopeless.
He was always the first to start writing, and always the first to stop.
In the math exam room.
Lin Yu spent twenty minutes completing all the questions. Then, he flipped over the draft paper and began drawing extremely complex probability distribution diagrams on it.
He's scheming.
It wasn't about calculating the questions, but about calculating the 500,000 test takers and thousands of examiners across the province.
"The last challenging math problem, the second part of the classification discussion, according to the conservative grading habits of the provincial teaching and research group, as long as the boundary conditions of the first case are written out, you can get 3 points for the process."
Lin Yu wrote down a number on the draft paper: 3.
"If I deliberately omit an absolute value symbol in the third step, resulting in an error, I will deduct 2 points."
He continued writing: -2.
His brain is like a sophisticated quantum computer, incorporating all the points for awarding or deducting marks for each question into the model, including the visual fatigue errors that occur when graders work for extended periods.
He was playing an extremely hardcore numbers game.
Xia Zijin's birthday is June 6th.
He wants to control the total score: 666.
This is a hundred times more difficult than getting a perfect score of 750.
A perfect score only requires getting everything right. But a score of 666 means that he must accurately predict where he will lose every point in a joint exam with half a million people, and ensure that the combination of scores in each subject is perfect.
On the other side, in the eighth examination room.
Su Qingwan is taking an English exam.
She was covered in sweat, but her eyes were filled with excitement.
On the 12th cloze test, she couldn't understand the grammatical structure of the long and complex sentence at all. But she did see that one of the options was "compromise".
She chose it without hesitation.
In the reading comprehension passage C, which asked about the author's attitude towards global warming, she directly chose "indifferent."
"Lin Yu's notes were really useful!"
Su Qingwan was overjoyed. "I'm absolutely sure I can get back into the top ten of the whole school in this joint exam!"
4:30 PM.
The bell rang to signal the end of the English exam.