Teacher Sun's statement made everyone's blood boil. Of the 40 plus participants from their city, only 5 of them made it through to the final! This proved that the questions this time were indeed extremely hard.
From their school, Ding Yi, Mo Li and Qiao Qing were the chosen participants. But only 2 of them got through, it was clear to everyone who were the two. The boys around Ding Yi started to cheer.
"Congratulations, Ding Yi! You've done us proud this time!"
"You're definitely going to treat us to dinner tonight!"
"You brat, you were so nervous after the exam but listen to the result now!"
Ding Yi said with a confident smile, "Alright, alright, alright. We're still in class. We should listen to what Teacher Sun has to say." Then he added with a subtle smile, "But order anything you want tonight, the meal's on me!"
...
Noting how happy Ding Yi was, the old crone didn't say anything. She coughed and then announced the result. "The first finalist is Qiao Qing!"
This came as no surprise. If she didn't get in, then probably no one at Pearl River could.
Qiao Qing was kicking and cheering internally, but on the surface, she only smiled like usual. However, before her smile even had the time to mature, the old crone continued, "Of course, due to the elevated difficulty of the test, so the marks required to pass the preliminary is lowered to 58 marks. Qiao Qing scored 59 marks, making her the 5th best student from our city."
A smattering of applause rang in the class, it did nothing to cover up the snickering among the students.
"No way! She is only 1 mark away from failing? You have to be kidding me..."
"She almost didn't make it! This is very unlike Qiao Qing!"
"It should be due to the difficulty of the questions so this time she didn't perform like usual."
"So she only got 5th place. In other words, she got last place... Perhaps we shouldn't place so much hope on her after all. She's not of good stock anyway."
"If this is her result in the preliminary, I don't have hope for her results in the finals!"
Qiao Qing barely got the qualification to enter the finals, that was indeed disappointing. Hearing the comments, the smile on Qiao Qing's face disappeared, and her face paled.
When Ding Yi heard Qiao Qing scored the last place, he became excited. Then I would have to score better than Qiao Qing, at least in the first 3 spots. Ding Yi's lips curved even higher.
The old crone continued, "Now, this next student has proven to be a pleasant surprise! I didn't expect this student to get such a high score."
A smug smile appeared on Ding Yi's face as he adjusted his collar. He raised his chin and chest, ready to stand up to receive the applause.
"Miss Mo Li has scored 81 marks! She is our city's second best student and the first place student only scored 2 marks higher than her!" The sentence cast the whole class into silence.
Ding Yi fell down into his seat directly. Impossible! This is impossible! Am I hallucinating? Or dreaming?
Mo Li scored 81 points, more than 20 points higher than the passing mark. And her result is so much better than Qiao Qing!
Ding Yi was so dizzy that he could barely stand up. He held onto the edge of the table and asked shakingly, "Teacher... Teacher Sun! Then what about me? How did I do?"
The old crone opened the result document and flipped through it. She found Ding Yi's name at the last few pages. "Oh, you scored 34 marks, you are ranked... Erm, perhaps you didn't focus properly during the exam, but it's alright, there's always next time."
Ding Yi almost fainted. What the hell? 34 marks? Is she joking?
The class exploded as well.
"The hell? What is this?"
"Ding Yi only scored 34 marks?"
"Teacher Sun, are you sure you didn't mistake the results?"
"That's right, we demand a recheck of the results. I believe there must be a mistake when they graded the papers."
Ding Yi asked tentatively, "Teacher... that shouldn't be my score! Are you sure you didn't mistake my result with Mo Li's?"
Incidentally, that was what the old crone thought when she got the result document. For that, she even requested Ding Yi and Mo Li's test papers. Reality proved that Ding Yi really didn't score better than Mo Li... He had gotten many questions wrong.
"It's not mistaken... I've personally checked your test papers. Ding Yi, you have gotten several multiple-choice questions wrong. For the open-ended questions, you have most of the equations and thus the conclusion wrong."