From child prodigy to chief scientist

Chapter 110 College Entrance Exam Scores Are Out

Two hours into the exam, Pan Hong had finished and submitted her paper.

Half an hour later, Ge Xijie also handed in his paper and left the classroom.

It wasn't until quite a while after Ge Xijie handed in his paper that Xu Xiao, somewhat belatedly, walked to the podium with her exam paper.

Seeing that Xu Xiao had finally handed in his paper, Fei Ran hurriedly looked at Xu Xiao's test paper with some curiosity.

At first glance, Fei Ran could clearly sense that something was wrong.

Xu Xiao's test paper was so full that even though her handwriting was small, there was hardly any blank space on the entire paper.

Only after he carefully examined Xu Xiao's solution did he realize the problem.

For the very first question, Xu Xiao used four different methods to solve it.

Of these four methods, none can even be considered a conventional method.

Fei Ran knew that with Xu Xiao's abilities, he would definitely know both conventional solutions to this problem.

Based on this calculation, Xu Xiao could come up with six different methods to solve this problem.

Even when expanding students' thinking, Fei Ran would never exaggerate to this extent.

Looking at the methods Xu Xiao used, although some of them were indeed beyond the scope of the curriculum, the underlying principles were all perfectly sound.

Fei Ran thought that if it were him, he probably could only find three or four methods at most in the exam room.

After glancing at Xu Xiao's exam paper, Fei Ran finally understood why he had handed in his paper so late this time.

He used several methods to solve each problem, and all of them avoided the conventional methods, which naturally took more time to think and solve the problems.

Fei Ran admitted that it was indeed very impressive to do this, but he couldn't figure out the point of Xu Xiao's actions.

"So, Xu Xiao, are you here to show off your skills to me?"

Besides this, Fei Ran really couldn't find any other reason for Xu Xiao to do this.

Faced with Fei Ran's question, Xu Xiao was momentarily at a loss for words.

He wouldn't do something so childish so casually; he was just trying to gather fragments of inspiration.

However, Xu Xiao couldn't really answer truthfully in front of Fei Ran, so after thinking for a moment, she could only say, "Teacher Fei, I just wanted to try other methods, that's all—"

"Alright, no need to explain anymore, go and work on your paper."

Seeing Xu Xiao like this, Fei Ran felt that he might as well have handed in his paper early like before, at least then he wouldn't have to see him and be bothered by it.

In the following period, Xu Xiao rekindled his interest in math competitions, not only actively participating in training but also taking the initiative to help his teammates explain problems they couldn't solve.

This is partly to help the Chinese national math competition team win first place at the IMO, since the IMO team competition is ranked based on the total score of the six team members, and the score of each team member is very important.

On the other hand, Xu Xiao also hopes to accumulate as many fragments of inspiration as possible through this process.

This often led Fei Ran to see scenes like this in the training room: Xu Xiao explaining problems to teammates who were a head taller than him, yet his demeanor was like that of a teacher and students.

"This problem can be solved directly using Euler's formula in topology! Treat the triangle and inscribed circle as a plane figure, and then you can find the contradiction using proof by contradiction —"

"This equation reveals the operator equation in functional theory. The left side directly uses the operator properties of quadratic forms, and we can deduce in one step that f is a quadratic form —"

"We can directly use the fast-growing/slow-growing set bisection method from the generalization of connected graphs. Divide the point set into two classes according to the size of the convex hull, and the results of both classes will eventually converge to the same lower bound —"

Because Xu Xiao's methods are so unconventional, every time people hear Xu Xiao's methods, they have an "aha!" moment, as if they've just realized that "this problem can be proven in this way."

Of course, Xu Xiao still had a bottom line. She didn't really sabotage her teammates just to complete the task, but tried her best to use methods that didn't exceed the scope of the task to explain.

If a method is truly beyond the syllabus, Xu Xiao will definitely emphasize that it can only be used as an extension and cannot be used in the exam.

Fei Ran was very pleased to see that Xu Xiao was able to help his teammates improve.

With such a team atmosphere, Fei Ran felt more and more that the Chinese math competition team had a very high chance of winning the championship this time.

Before we knew it, it was already June 25th.

This is the date when the college entrance examination results of Liaoning Province were released. At midnight, a large number of candidates and their parents were nervously checking their scores.

There are two ways to check scores: by phone and online. However, since the internet is not as developed in this era, most people still need to rely on the phone to check their scores.

However, due to the overwhelming number of calls received in a short period of time, most people only received a busy signal and were unable to check their scores immediately.

Xu Xiao was already asleep. Although he knew the scores would be released tonight, he felt there was no need for him to stay up all night to check them.

-

Anyway, he has already been admitted to Peking University through the recommendation program. Even if he is curious about his college entrance examination results, he can check them after he wakes up the next day.

Xu Lang and Yu Guilan, however, were not so patient. They had already prepared in front of their computers and opened the Liaoning Provincial Admissions Examination window before midnight.

Compared to checking scores by phone, checking scores online is less congested. Of course, at the beginning, the website still crashed due to a large influx of users in a short period of time.

After some time, the website gradually became accessible again.

During this time, Xu Lang refreshed the page hundreds of times and almost gave up on checking his scores.

After Xu Lang tried again, Xu Xiao's score was finally revealed.

Xu Lang and Yu Guilan were both stunned as they looked at the information on the page.

Name: Xu Xiao

[Exam Admission Ticket Number: 0106102892]

[Chinese Language: 142]

[Mathematics: 150]

[English: 150]

[Combined Science Score: 300]

Total Score: 742

"742 points — am I seeing things?"

"You read that right, 742 points! Xiaoxiao should be able to get the top score in the province, right?"

"Absolutely! Even with only 720 points, that's more than enough to be the top scorer!"

They both knew what such a result meant; it was not only a sure thing for the top scorer in the college entrance examination, but also an absolute leader.

Students' college entrance examination scores were not as high as they used to be. In previous years, the top scorer in science in Liaoning Province rarely reached 710 points.

In contrast, Xu Xiao's score was ridiculously high.

Except for Chinese, where 8 points were deducted, I got full marks in all three other subjects.