The classroom of Class Thirteen was almost the same as two days ago. There was no sound of reading aloud, but it wasn't too noisy either, thanks to those empty seats at the back. It's the so-called bad class, hardly any student who could drive a young teacher to tears would be embarrassed to greet people outside.
But as the high school entrance exams approached, after the school specifically communicated with these parents, such students simply submitted a "Voluntary Waiver of the Exam Application," allowing both parties to part ways without further mutual harm.
Qiao Yu originally wanted to apply voluntarily as well, but unfortunately, he didn't know this was an option before; he was not fallen enough.
During several mock exams in the second half of the semester, although he didn't seriously answer the papers and even slept during the exams, he still didn't meet the mandatory dropout standard of averaging no more than 200 points across three mock exams.
Qiao Yu always believed it wasn't his fault; it was mainly because the papers were too simple. Just a glance and the answers would appear in his mind. Unintentionally, he would write the correct answers on the paper.
And although he was naughty, most of the time, he just slept in class and never did anything as boring as contradicting teachers. Moreover, since his total score always exceeded 300 points each time, Qiao Yu was not on the dropout list.
To put it bluntly, unless the students were utterly hopeless, even unlikely to get into a 3+2 five-year continuous system school, the school couldn't operate this way. If they were too blatant about it, a flood of complaints would be unbearable for the school.
But the school was also very helpless.
Although the higher authorities strictly prohibited schools from ranking students by exam results, they had to rank the schools according to students' exam scores, forcing schools to rank teachers by results.
Actually, if all schools played by the rules, it wouldn't matter. The higher management had a relatively scientific calculation formula. But the problem was, there were too many smart people in Huaxia. Once one school started scheming and manipulating, others had no choice but to grit their teeth and follow.
After all, the school's ranking was closely tied to teaching funding, bonus distribution, title promotion, and awards. A good policy was turned into a prisoner's dilemma by a group of smart people.
Of course, none of this had anything to do with Qiao Yu.
His phone was confiscated. Since he decided to participate in the Mathematics Competition, he thought it was better to take the entrance exams a bit more seriously, so Qiao Yu pulled out his chemistry book.
As for the three main subjects, Chinese, Mathematics, and English, Qiao Yu felt he had no problem with them. History and Daoism had been clearly stated as open-book exams, Physics was easy, but Chemistry required a bit more memorization, so he had to hurry up a bit.
Qiao Yu didn't know Lan Jie planned to make him suspend school for a year. In his view, although he only scored eighteen in Geography and Biology, getting into an A-tier school was unlikely. But with a bit of preparation, passing the high school B-tier line should not be too hard.
As for his comprehensive quality evaluation, Qiao Yu thought that was something Lan Jie needed to worry about, after all, it was Teacher Lan who insisted that he participate in the Mathematics Competition.
"Qiao Yu, wanna go to the internet cafe tonight?"
As soon as he opened the book, his deskmate Zhou Shuang leaned over to ask.
This was a guy who liked to play cool, he enjoyed having long hair, disliked wearing the school uniform, and his clear-cut traits made him a regular for reflections under the national flag every Monday.
Qiao Yu glanced at him and decisively shook his head: "No, I have to study."
"Study? Are you going for a postgraduate exam?" Such a statement exposed that although this fellow was still a minor, he was already a frequent participant in various forums.
"Whether or not to take a postgraduate exam is another matter, first aim for Huaqing or Yanbei." Qiao Yu casually responded, this was the small goal set by Lan Jie for him, so he could answer confidently.
"Pfft... Dude, stop joking, listen to me, aim lower first, Ludong Lanxiang's excavator program, with a hundred percent employment rate after graduation, it's our unchangeable choice. Come with me, I'll cover you!"
Qiao Yu glanced at Zhou Shuang and lazily replied, "The internet says there are no girls at construction sites, so do you think Ludong Lanxiang's excavator program will have girls? Will Luo Shan go with you?"
With one sentence, Zhou Shuang was visibly stunned and then started to become downcast.
Qiao Yu was a bit surprised, mainly because he didn't expect this guy was seriously considering going straight to Ludong Lanxiang after graduation, but he didn't plan to say much more.
Everyone has the right to choose their future, whether right or wrong is secondary, as long as they take responsibility for their life, that's enough.
Having already tasted the sweetness of love, experienced the bitterness of love, and been drowned dead alive by the salty water in the sea of love in junior high, yet still wanting to experience more in high school and university, Qiao Yu found that quite unreasonable.
Not sure what was murmured after, Zhou Shuang lost interest in talking. Fortunately, at this moment, the teacher came in, and the discipline finally improved a bit. Regardless of willingness, the vast majority of classmates still took out a book and pretended to read.
As Teacher Yuan said, it's the last month, she didn't want to make things difficult for the students anymore, so as long as nobody went too overboard, as long as things looked okay on the surface, she could turn a blind eye to some minor disciplinary violations.
But today, Teacher Yuan just stood at the door for a moment and then looked at Qiao Yu's seat.
"Qiao Yu, come out for a second."
Teacher Yuan's call made almost every gaze in the class focus on Qiao Yu.
Many of those gazes were filled with sympathy.
No other way, while other classes might not know, in Class Thirteen, being singled out by the class teacher basically meant bad news ninety-nine percent of the time.
To say it straightforwardly, the kids assigned to the worst class weren't just poor in studies; their family conditions also weren't great.
As long as the parents had some capability, even if their grades were the worst in school, they could discreetly stay in an ordinary class to muddle through life, at most just not counting for class rankings. So if a teacher specifically called on someone, it's unlikely to be good news for a kid from this class.
For Qiao Yu, the frustration was being called out just as he got into the studying groove.
"Teacher Lan from the high school department visited your home yesterday, right?" As soon as they got out, Teacher Yuan asked.
Qiao Yu only felt a headache; he could see the intense curiosity on the teacher's face, the same look he saw on his mother's face the day before.
"Yeah."
"What did he say?"
"He told me to find him directly at the office after school at four thirty today."
"Oh, didn't he mention anything about suspending school?"
"Suspending school? Why?" Qiao Yu looked at the teacher in confusion.
"You don't know yet? If you participate in the competition, the provincial competition won't be until September. If you advance to the national level, it'll be in November. If you don't pass the high school entrance exam next month, you won't be able to keep your student status at school."
Qiao Yu was speechless, and only after a while did he say, "Um, shouldn't I be able to get into our school?"
This time it was Yuan Yuan's turn to be speechless: "Your combined Geography and Biology exam scores total only eighteen! This year, to be safe for our Iron High, you'll need at least 615 points."
Qiao Yu nodded and began to calculate on the spot: "But I got full marks in PE, so I only deducted 62 points; 700 minus 62 is 638, leaving me with a 23-point margin for error. That's quite a lot."
Their eyes met, and if there had been a third party present, it would have been evident that both of them had complex feelings.
Qiao Yu really didn't find the entrance exams to be very hard. Those mock exam questions—aren't they ones that anyone with a brain would know?
Yuan Yuan was probably thinking, is this really something a student from an underperforming class should be saying?