Chapter 99

Li Tangqiu looked at the number he had written himself and was completely unsettled. For a moment, his heart surged with emotion and doubts multiplied.

He knew how difficult it was to achieve such a high score in Chinese.

Xiao Fei's Chinese scores in his regular class were indeed excellent; he usually scored over 110 points, and at his best, he reached over 120.

In this exam, if he hadn't deducted 8 points from Xiao Fei's essay, Xiao Fei's score would have been a perfect 150.

This improvement was too drastic.

It was so drastic that Li Tangqiu couldn't believe it.

He wondered if Xiao Fei had done this set of questions before, but he immediately dismissed this possibility. This set of questions was the latest from Huanggang High School and wouldn't be available on the market.

Then, could it be that the questions were leaked before the exam, allowing Xiao Fei to get them?

He then dismissed this guess as well. The test papers were stored in a metal cabinet in the office, and it would be impossible to steal them without anyone noticing. Besides, based on his understanding of Xiao Fei, Xiao Fei wouldn't do such a self-deceptive thing.

It was just a regular weekly exam; only a foolish student would steal the test papers before the exam.

So, Li Tangqiu could only attribute Xiao Fei's sudden improvement in Chinese to an exceptional performance or a genuine significant improvement in his abilities.

After grading the top students' papers, Li Tangqiu started to grade the other students' papers.

He didn't say much to the other teachers about Xiao Fei's super high score. It was just a weekly exam; if he paid too much attention to it, it would seem shallow.

To determine if a student has truly made significant progress, one needs to evaluate their performance over several exams. A single high score doesn't say much.

Let's wait and see how Xiao Fei performs in the future.

But in the afternoon, as soon as Li Tangqiu arrived at the office, the politics teacher, Liu Jinzhong, found him: "Mr. Li, I have something to tell you."

Liu Jinzhong was around 37 or 38 years old, with a dark complexion, thick eyebrows, and a simple appearance, looking like a simple and honest farmer.

"Mr. Liu, what's the matter?" Li Tangqiu asked.

Liu Jinzhong first handed a test paper from his desk to Li Tangqiu.

Li Tangqiu took it and his eyebrows shot up, his eyes widening. It was Xiao Fei's paper, and the score column showed a bright red "147."

Xiao Fei actually scored such a high mark in politics?!

He was just 3 points away from a perfect score.

This was almost unbelievable.

Li Tangqiu's heart raced, but his doubts grew even more.

Almost a perfect score in Chinese and almost a perfect score in politics—Xiao Fei's improvement was too drastic, giving a sense of unreality.

In the era when the college entrance exam scores were presented as raw scores, why couldn't liberal arts students achieve such high scores? Because the three main subjects—Chinese, history, and politics—had too many subjective questions.

It was not easy to score high in these three subjects.

This led to the fact that no matter how hard liberal arts students worked, they couldn't achieve the astonishing results that science students could, where they might lose only a few points in each subject.

A classic example: every year, the total scores of the top science students in each province were much higher than those of the top liberal arts students, with the largest gap exceeding 100 points.

Li Tangqiu was unsettled.

He sincerely hoped that Xiao Fei's score was genuine, but he had significant doubts about such an outstanding performance.

"Mr. Liu, have you verified everything?" Li Tangqiu asked.

Liu Jinzhong nodded: "No mistakes!"

"How similar are Xiao Fei's answers to the standard answers for the big questions?" Li Tangqiu asked, frowning.

Liu Jinzhong said: "All the key points are covered, and there are even some reasonable analyses. I'm not sure what you mean by similarity."

"Are the sentences in Xiao Fei's answers similar to those in the standard answers?" Li Tangqiu asked.

"Are you suspecting that Xiao Fei knew the answers beforehand?" Liu Jinzhong's thick eyebrows raised.

"Mr. Liu, do you think there's any possibility of that?" Li Tangqiu asked.

"The possibility is very small, almost zero. I put the test papers in the metal cabinet after getting them from the academic affairs office and only took them out right before the exam. The papers definitely didn't leak in advance," Liu Jinzhong said firmly. "As for the similarity between Xiao Fei's answers and the standard answers, I can clearly tell you that, apart from covering all the essential key points, there is no similarity in the explanations."

"So, this score is genuine?"

"I believe it is."

"Is this test paper too easy?"

"I have already graded over 80 papers, and only about 7 or 8 students scored over 100 points. Most scored around 80 to 90, and a few even scored 50 to 60."

Li Tangqiu smiled bitterly and said to Liu Jinzhong: "Mr. Liu, actually, Xiao Fei's Chinese score in this weekly exam was also extremely high."

"Ah? What did he score in Chinese?" Liu Jinzhong asked.

"142 points. I deducted 8 points from his essay, but his essay was excellent, with first-class writing and ideas. I originally wanted to give him a perfect score, but I hesitated and didn't."

Liu Jinzhong was silent for a moment, then smiled: "Based on his performance in this weekly exam, he should be able to get into a key university this year, but he didn't even pass the undergraduate line."

"Yes, this improvement is too drastic," Li Tangqiu nodded in agreement.

"Let's see how he performs in the other subjects," Liu Jinzhong suggested.

Li Tangqiu had high hopes for Xiao Fei. He believed Xiao Fei was a good seed and had a good chance of getting into a top university after a year of retaking the exams.

But what he valued was Xiao Fei's potential, the possibility that after a year of retraining, he could reach a new height by next year.

Now, Xiao Fei's performance in his first weekly exam after retaking the exams was so outstanding that it was almost too good to be true. Li Tangqiu was afraid it was a dream, something he could see but not grasp, which is why he was so conflicted.

In the following time, after each exam, Li Tangqiu had the subject teachers immediately pull out Xiao Fei's paper and quickly grade it.

By 10:30 PM, Xiao Fei's scores in all five subjects were out.

The five test papers were spread out on Li Tangqiu's desk.

Chinese: 142 points.

Politics: 147 points.

Math: 150 points.

English: 149 points.

History: 147 points.

The total score for the five subjects was 735 points, out of a possible 750, with only 15 points lost.

Looking at these five test papers, all five teachers were stunned. They had never seen such a high total score in the liberal arts. Was this real? They almost couldn't believe their eyes.