Rebirth 08: A Happy Life Begins in Elementary School

Chapter 117 Graduation Exam

October 6, Wednesday.

The first day of graduation exams for elementary school students in New Taipei City.

Nothing special happened; everyone took the exam in their original seats.

Li Zhao had expected that at least the two small tables that were put together would be separated, but they weren't.

This graduation exam was really embarrassing.

After all, it's nine years of compulsory education, so even if you do poorly on the exam, it won't affect your ability to go to junior high school.

Therefore, in Li Zhao's memory, the end of the second semester of sixth grade should not have been very stressful.

It's nothing compared to the final year of junior high or senior high school.

In any case, he didn't think Chen Nian would work this hard.

The graduation exams will never be like they are now, with the entire classroom filled with tension and pressure.

Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

Therefore, in a group, a truly outstanding person can indeed become a beacon.

Despite the huge gap, so large that the vast majority of the class genuinely believed it was impossible for them to catch up with Li Zhao.

However, Li Zhao's existence can force everyone to aspire to a better outcome and ignite new ambitions in everyone's hearts.

Class monitor Ma Yingying lost her first place a semester ago. From seeing Li Zhao as an enemy to accepting his fate, she can't help but want to prove that she is still very excellent.

Cai Chao and his two mischievous brothers broke down in their defenses and, after recovering, showed signs of turning over a new leaf. Although they couldn't become much more powerful, they couldn't be so easily looked down upon!

Zhao Pengwei realized his own mediocrity. His admiration for Li Zhao's strength turned into jealousy, and then into longing. He set a very realistic goal—to be in the top five of his class, a position he had never achieved throughout his entire elementary school career.

Liu Mingyu wants to improve his Chinese composition skills and prove that he has learned something.

Jiang Qi didn't really intend to get into the top 50 at New Taipei First Senior High School; it was just talk, but she was determined to get into New Taipei First Senior High School.

Since Chen Nian was able to break the curse of being ninth in his class, why can't he aim for second place? Maybe by being around a master like Li Zhao, he might gradually acquire some of Li Zhao's skills?

He Shuyao is determined to get into the top 50 at New Taipei First Senior High School.

Everyone has their own goals, but generally they are more demanding and determined than before.

So much so that—this should have been a time when yearbooks were overflowing, and everyone was chatting about their middle school dreams and summer vacation plans as soon as get out of class ended.

The month was completely overshadowed by the act of "studying diligently".

The graduation exam itself doesn't have much significance, but for these ambitious children, it's a good opportunity for self-assessment before entering junior high school.

Has there been any progress? How far are we from the person we aspire to be?

But for Li Zhao, it really meant nothing —

What he gained the most was actually the systematic and serious review of junior high school knowledge over the past month—well, perhaps it should be called previewing?

He had already read it once before, so he had a general understanding of the junior high school content and found that he could understand most of it.

However, understanding is one thing, mastering and applying it is another.

For the past month, Li Zhao has been filtering knowledge, removing the simple and easy-to-understand information and leaving only the content that requires him to think outside the box.

Then write it down in the "Look Again" notebook.

Leaving aside things that require rote memorization—there's plenty of time to memorize those in junior high—the main thing is the "system."

He tried to understand junior high school knowledge by combining high school and even university thinking. Although he has not yet been able to build a clear framework, he can already clearly feel the effect.

For example, in junior high school mathematics, the core components are functions, equations, geometry, and probability and statistics, but each is taught separately, and the learning is not in-depth, with the knowledge points being quite scattered.

This is a major characteristic of junior high school teaching; it simply aims to give everyone a preliminary understanding of this knowledge.

This applies to all subjects except Chinese.

Li Zhao had studied advanced mathematics, although his grades weren't outstanding. However, compared to the pace of junior high school courses, Li Zhao's understanding of function graphs was clearly beyond what ordinary junior high school students could achieve.

If he can approach his studies from this angle and delve deeper into it, he won't be thinking about ordinary junior high school exams, but rather various high-level competitions.

For example, he can solve highly difficult geometry problems where even drawing auxiliary lines makes them indistinguishable and impossible to solve, using analytical geometry.

The same principle applies to physics, chemistry, and biology. Li Zhao had studied these subjects before, and he not only understood some things that were difficult to comprehend at first, but he also knew the deeper reasons that were not mentioned in the junior high school textbooks.

Politics, history, and geography offer a different experience; Li Zhao's understanding of these subjects already incorporates his social experience.

Taking history as an example, he doesn't need to rigidly memorize what happened in each dynasty, but can directly view the changes of dynasties through the lens of productivity and institutional issues.

The typical junior high school student learns history by memorizing historical events, then memorizing the analysis, and then matching them with the questions on the test paper. There is a lot to memorize, and it is very difficult to connect the dots.

Li Zhao directly uses historical events to corroborate his understanding of history, which puts him two levels above others.

He could even combine politics, history, and geography into one subject, as these three disciplines are inherently closely related.

Understanding knowledge from this perspective will provide the brain with many memory anchors.

All the knowledge is crammed into a few core rules, and then deduced and connected to various scattered knowledge points.

This is the basis of dimensional reduction attack.

After a month of learning, Li Zhao was full of confidence.

Thinking like this is really mentally taxing, and my brain always feels sleepy.

His happiness level increased by 3 points due to his satisfaction with his highly engaged state, and by another 2 points due to his strong confidence, bringing the total to 13 points.

Overall, however, the speed of acquiring points has decreased, the stable study life has fewer variables, and there are fewer stories.

Li Zhao didn't see anything wrong with this. Essentially, this month was a confirmation of his future development, and the real gain was "strong confidence."

This is a very precious thing.

First, calm yourself down.

The first exam was Chinese, which was the most difficult for Li Zhao because it included an essay, something that definitely required some thought.

The same goes for reading comprehension questions. Li Zhao's first reaction is always to overthink, coming up with some over-interpretations like "the author didn't really think that way."

It requires forced simplification and a roundabout way of thinking in order to simply and directly summarize the "main idea" or "central theme".

Although with his current influence, in an exam where the six elementary schools grade their own papers, as long as Li Zhao can explain his reasoning clearly, no teacher would dare not give him a grade.

But there's no need for that.

Li Zhao finished the relatively difficult Chinese exam in 40 minutes. This time, he challenged himself not to write on the draft paper first, so that he could get used to it in advance.

He didn't want the difficulty of the entrance exam for junior high school to suddenly increase, lest he fail to manage his time well and end up failing miserably.

There's not much to say about the math and English exams that followed.

It's too simple.

The graduation exam is actually easier than the final exams organized by individual schools, since it is city-wide and needs to take into account some lower-level primary schools.

Li Zhao had previously been completely detached from studying and was able to handle things with ease, let alone now that he had been learning junior high school knowledge for a month, he had done a lot of exercises in the textbook.

The so-called exam state is largely about thinking habits.

Li Zhao, who has a habit of solving problems, is a complete idiot when he tries to do elementary school problems.

However, considering that everyone was taking it very seriously, he did not slap his pen or make any other noticeable movements after he finished writing.

I even checked it again, and then drew on the draft paper.

So as not to affect the mindset of other students, especially Chen Nian, who was so serious that he kept frowning slightly.

Elementary school exams can be completed in a day. As the bell rang for the English exam, many students sighed in unison.

A sigh of relief.

Chen Nian took a very slow, deep breath and then exhaled slowly.

"Holy crap—" he said, "The exam's over—"

He's still lost in thought. Give him a few more seconds, and he'll be more lively.

Li Zhao looked at He Shuyao, who was quietly packing her pencil case, as if it were just an ordinary day.

Is it common?

Li Zhao looked around and saw that most of his classmates had smiles on their faces.

Excited, relaxed, helpless, blank, confused.

Even if the test score is just average, I'll still inexplicably smile for a moment.

The graduation exam is all about the word "graduation".

After this exam, although summer vacation hasn't started yet, classes are already over.

As is customary in previous years, there will be a week of self-study time for everyone to prepare for the entrance exam to junior high school. Teachers will flexibly go around answering questions and providing guidance.

Students with average grades don't care; some just go home and wait for the results to be released before coming back.

People also take this time to work on yearbooks and chat about the future.

Then the graduation exam results are announced, a class meeting is organized, and summer vacation begins.

The frustrating part is that summer vacation starts on July 4th, but the entrance exam for junior high school is on July 11th.

Therefore, for top students aiming for the top four high schools, their holiday doesn't really begin until the results of the primary school entrance exam are finalized, which is usually around July 15th.

But in any case, on the day they finished their graduation exams, the elementary school students felt for the first time the "end of a certain stage of their lives," and they could take a step towards the adult world they longed for, so they were all somewhat looking forward to it.

Therefore, smiles are the main theme.

Chen Nian didn't laugh. Twenty seconds had passed, and he was still sitting in his seat, lost in thought.

"What's wrong?" Li Zhao patted his shoulder.

"Ugh."

"It's just a graduation exam."

"7

"It's not that I feel I did poorly on the test," Chen Nian sighed briefly. "It's that I feel the gap between us is still too big."

"Take a graduation exam—"

"Ah Zhao, I've tried my best. This graduation exam isn't difficult, and I might even get a high score. But even if we both get 300..."

The difference is still there. I scored 300 because that's my limit; you scored 300 because the test was only out of 300 points.

Li Zhao smiled helplessly. This silly boy had spent a long time thinking before putting on a show for him.

"I was thinking, now is the time when the gap between us is the smallest, and only now can I still be your deskmate."

Chen Nian gradually became sad.

"Don't think too much about it. There are a lot more courses in junior high school. As long as you can get into New Taipei First Senior High School, you will have one adjustment opportunity per semester. We still have a chance to be classmates."

"Ah Zhao, if you become very successful in the future, can we still be friends?"

"If you ask again, I won't go to ball lessons with you this summer."

"You're wrong, you're wrong, Zhaoshen." Chen Nian repeatedly bowed.

Just then, He Shuyao finished packing her schoolbag and walked over, holding a colorful notebook in her hand.

At that time, the most popular thing, almost every girl had one—a yearbook.