Wu Tong was unusually eager to take the placement test that was due as scheduled.
She had tried her best to lay a solid foundation. She had mastered the four subjects of mathematics, physics, chemistry and biology, and had thoroughly understood the high school part. She had also done countless mock exams and exercise books. Now she urgently needed a real test to test herself.
The examination timetable and examination room numbers will be issued one day before the examination. The examination room numbers are determined based on the final grades of the previous semester.
At the end of last semester, Wu Tong was only ranked 39th in the class, and her school ranking was around 600-700th. She was not even in the class or grade rankings, so she took the exam in Room 42 in Room 11.
The first exam was Chinese. The preparatory bell rang at 7:50. The invigilator emphasized the exam room discipline and then began to distribute the papers.
"When you get the test paper, first check whether there are any missing pieces or misprints. If there are any problems, give us feedback in time." This is a commonplace statement made by the invigilators. This is a key point that they always emphasize when handing out the test papers.
After receiving the test paper, which was in eight-fold format, Wu Tong first checked it and glanced at the general questions. It was still the usual basic knowledge plus classical Chinese translation, appreciation of ancient poetry and prose, as well as modern Chinese reading and composition. Nothing looked particularly unfamiliar.
After confirming that everything was ok, she began to fill in her class name. When the bell rang and the invigilator said the exam was about to begin, she began to carefully review the questions and write down her answers in neat handwriting.
She also put in the effort to retake Chinese, focusing on everything she needed to recite and memorize. The Chinese exams were much clearer now than before. Wu Tong barely hesitated as she tackled basic knowledge, classical Chinese translation, and ancient poetry appreciation. Her thoughts raced, and her pen flowed fluently.
Compared with the previous ones, Wu Tong needed to put more effort into modern Chinese reading and writing. These two areas cannot be solved by memorization alone, and there is no fixed answer.
Wu Tong could only try her best to read the original text carefully based on what she heard in the question and write down the most appropriate answer she could think of at the moment.
Since the progress of the basic part with clear answers was relatively smooth, at this time, only one hour and ten minutes of the exam time had passed, leaving Wu Tong with eighty minutes to write the composition.
The essay is a material-based composition, requiring students to read the material, choose their own style and title, and stay within the scope of the material. The essay should be no less than 800 words. This is a change based on the freshly released college entrance examination essays this year.
Wu Tong tried his best to select clear viewpoints and angles from them, and extended them to define the content of the writing in a positive direction, and tried his best to use words and sentences to make his writing not so dry.
Previously, Chinese was her strong subject, and it was the subject she least feared during exams. However, Wu Tong now found that after doing too many purely science-based projects, compared to those that required her to decipher the author's thoughts and feelings, appreciate the emotions they were expressing, and rack her brains to write, she found that math, physics, and chemistry, where there was only one correct answer and a clear direction, were more satisfying.
It took Wu Tong a full hour to finish the essay. The essay was worth 60 points, more than a third of her total Chinese score of 150, so she couldn't afford to neglect it. She'd done better than she'd ever done on any of her previous exams, and this essay couldn't let her performance lag behind.
With twenty minutes left, Wu Tong carefully checked the test paper twice, and the two and a half hour Chinese test was over.
At half past ten, the bell rang. The bell rang, signaling that all students who had not yet submitted their papers must stop writing immediately, or their scores would be invalidated. This was a rule the school had been practicing for students in every exam since they entered college.
Every exam should be approached with the utmost seriousness, just like the national college entrance exam. This is something the teacher and invigilator never tire of emphasizing. The students in this exam room were generally diligent in their studies. There might have been some cheating, but it wasn't blatant. Furthermore, since the exam was in Chinese, a subject that everyone was generally good at, the exam room discipline was generally acceptable.
After a twenty-minute break, the exam started again at 10:50. This time, the subject was physics, which Wu Tong was now very proficient in and had honed his skills for many days.
With the same emphasis, the test papers and answer sheet drafts were distributed one by one. After the same inspection, Wu Tong began to answer the questions from the beginning.
Having completed all high school physics lessons on his own and practiced countless exercises, Wu Tong is now really proficient in it.
For multiple-choice questions, he almost instantly had the answer after reading the question. He finished reading and answering the questions in a breath. For fill-in-the-blank questions, he could simply scribble on a piece of scratch paper and clearly determine the correct answer, which he filled in on the answer sheet. For calculation questions, Wu Tong read through them once to crystallize his thinking. For greater accuracy, he would first write them out on scratch paper before transcribing them onto the answer sheet.
Even though Wu Tong answered the questions very seriously and slowed down her test-taking speed, her thorough grasp of the knowledge points and her practiced test-taking speed still allowed her to finish the entire test paper in just half an hour.
Then, Wu Tong spent another 20 minutes to redo it carefully and quickly, and checked it again carefully. After confirming that there was no problem and there was nothing to change, she finally stopped wasting time, stood up, handed in the paper and left the examination room. She was not the first one to hand in the paper, and some people had already handed in their papers before her.
Wu Tong's early submission of the paper started to spread from this physics exam.
Wu Tong's early submission of the paper started to spread from this physics exam.
The first exam of the afternoon was math, Wu Tong's most comfortable subject. It started at two and ended at four, and Wu Tong wasn't going to let his guard down or skimp on the exam just because he knew he'd get a grade.
He answered the questions with the same meticulous care and slowness. The first question was a set problem that Wu Tong had previously considered heretical and troubled. Now, when he faced set problems, he no longer felt the same confusion or headache. After reading the question, the answer was already clear. He chose A without hesitation. Then, infinitives, functions... every knowledge point was taken care of!
After three exams, Wu Tong could clearly feel that this exam was just like what the teacher said. It tested the basics, but the basics were used in a variety of ways. The knowledge points were applied quite richly, and the basics were further elevated and sublimated in the later stages, especially the last two questions. They were really of a high level. Wu Tong felt that the last two questions were beyond the syllabus.
After rechecking her answers three times, Wu Tong was confident in her answers, feeling confident that there was nothing left to change. It only took her an hour to turn her paper in early again. This time, she became the first person in the exam room to do so. The fastest person in the same exam room had only just begun working on the second question of the main exam.