Chapter 25: Mixed Emotions

Teacher Lee looked through Qiao Nan’s papers again and again. It pained her to see her scores. But Qiao Nan answered brilliantly for every subjective question. In particularly for her essay, she scored flying colors.

As a Chinese teacher, it had been a long time since Teacher Lee saw such a well-written essay.

Aside from her neat handwriting, her essay was fair and reasonable; the language used though simple had deep meaning; it was logical and well structured. All in all, she could not find any fault with it.

Such a brilliant essay deserved full marks. However the teachers from the Chinese team had multiple discussions and decided that Qiao Nan’s use of words was too simple and deducted one mark for that.

What did one mean by back to basics?

This was back to basics!

Actually Teacher Lee did not agree to the deduction and wanted to have a discussion with the Chinese team.

But she was infuriated when she saw Qiao Nan’s answers for the components in front.

Memorization component accounted for a total of 10 marks. Qiao Nan did not get a single mark!

As for the other four marks, it was all pure memory work.

In other words, if Qiao Nan had studied what was taught in class while Teacher Lee tried to fight for that extra one mark, this average Chinese test paper would then score full marks!

It was common to have a full score for elementary Chinese paper. But for junior high level, in particularly secondary three, it was rare to see full marks for Chinese papers.

This could actually be the highest results among the cohort, a once in a blue moon full marks. But Qiao Nan wasted it all and ended up with 85 points, placed somewhere in the middle. How could Teacher Lee not be angry?

Teacher Lee felt that it was a pity for Qiao Nan to score this kind of result.

Because of this Teacher Lee did not sleep at all last night. She pondered over what she should say to Qiao Nan, in order for her to understand and reflect on her mistakes.

Teacher Lee was even angrier when she realized that Qiao Nan also had not done well in Maths, the subject that she was always good at.

But now Teacher Lee no longer thought that way.

Teacher Chen knew that Teacher Lee would be upset by Qiao Nan’s results. When he learned of Qiao Nan’s situation at home, he went back to the office and informed Teacher Lee about Qiao Nan’s complicated situation.

After learning of Qiao Nan’s situation, Teacher Lee could only sigh in exasperation. No matter how hardworking the child was, if their parents were unreasonable, what could a child do?

For those areas that require memorizing, no matter how hard Qiao Nan tried to commit the knowledge to her memory, if her parents had sold her textbooks, there was no way that she could revise.

Teacher Lee looked at Qiao Nan with mixed emotions. The other students in the class were bewildered. Qiao Nan had not done well in her exams. Why didn’t Teacher Lee reprimand her? Why did she stare at Qiao Nan but with no words of displeasure?

Come on, Qiao Nan deserved a serious scolding!

After the long summer break of fun, most of the students did not do well in the exams, they were bound to be spanked by their parents.

But they would at least be comforted by seeing Qiao Nan being reprimanded by the teachers.

A lot of the students were looking forward to seeing Teacher Lee rant at Qiao Nan. However after a while Teacher Lee said, “All of you should learn from... Qiao Nan, look at how well written her essay is. Then take a look at your own essay, is that even an essay? After a long break, all of your essays are rubbish.”

Teacher Lee bombarded the students for not doing well. “Qiao Nan, write a copy of your essay and paste it on the blackboard at the back of the classroom. Of course, everyone should just learn from the way she wrote her essay. Qiao Nan, do you know that your results were a real pity? It should have been... forget it, it was painfully agonizing to talk about it. Study hard in the future, you shouldn’t lose these 10 points.”

Qiao Nan flushed red with shame at Teacher Lee’s criticism and praise.

In particularly when Teacher Lee gazed at her, she felt a twinge of guilt, as if she had done something wrong to Teacher Lee.

At this, Qiao Nan thought what a cruel mockery this exam was.

After the lesson was over, Qiao Nan felt a shadow behind her, she turned and saw a girl glaring at her. She seemed to be unhappy. “Qiao Nan, hurry up and make a copy of your essay. I wanted to see just how brilliant it is.”

Qiao Nan had not much impression on this classmate. Qiao Nan was also not interested in making copies of her essay.

Without a word, Qiao Nan took out her essay from her exam paper, and pasted it on the blackboard at the back of the classroom, “Look at it yourself.”

After which she went on to study her Maths exams paper, paying attention to the problems.

“You.” Zhao Yu was enraged at Qiao Nan’s attitude. “Well there’s nothing to be proud of. You only did well for your essay and scored an average score of 85 points. That’s not the highest!”

There was no way to hide the fact that Qiao Nan did not do as well for this exam and was told off by Teacher Lee.

She heard Zhao Yu grunting to herself and turned back to look at her. What exactly was wrong with this young lady?

But she turned her attention back to the Maths exam paper after one glance.

Zhao Yu grew angrier by the moment, seeing how Qiao Nan appeared to be unaffected, and could not be bothered to bicker with her.

With a look of disbelief, Zhao Yu snorted and went to look at Qiao Nan’s essay. She had intended to pick on every small error that she could find. But after a long time reading the essay, Zhao Yu had to admit, the essay was very well written.

So what, she might have lose out to her this time, but there was always the next time and the time after that!

Zhao Yu clenched her fists and returned to her seat to read her essay book.

Soon after, the class had an English lesson. Unlike Teacher Chen and Teacher Lee, Teacher Yu was the only teacher who was all smiles on the way into the classroom. “After a summer break, a lot of students have lagged behind in their studies. Of course, there are some who have improved. Do you all know what’s the highest English score for the secondary three cohort and who is that student?”

“How many points?”

“98?”

“Bet it was not more than 99.”

There was an essay component for junior high English. Just like a Chinese essay, it would be difficult to score full marks.

“It is definitely not Qiao Nan.” Zhao Yu snickered and whispered softly.

Zhao Yu also sat in the second row, very close to Qiao Nan. So Qiao Nan overheard what she said.

Qiao Nan arched her eyebrows. She must have messed with this young lady in the past. Today was the second time she had picked on her.

“Nobody has the answer? Well, I also didn’t think that there would be a full marks this time! And the most commendable part is that this full marks score came from our class, Secondary Three Class One. Qiao Nan, come and get your paper.”

Every teacher usually went by one of the three styles to hand out the exam papers – firstly, from highest to lowest; secondly, from lowest to highest; and lastly, randomly.

As for today, Teacher Yu did not seem to be handing out according to the second or third scenario. If so, Qiao Nan was the one who scored full marks?

A lot of the students who were hoping that Qiao Nan would flunk her third subject, so as to have an excuse to rebut their parents back at home, were distraught when the teacher called out Qiao Nan’s name.