Chapter 265: Chapter 264.

Chapter 264. Am I in trouble? (2/4)

It was only now I understood what was going on and how I’d been outed as a potential cheater. I’d been careless, this question was beyond the scope of high school. The teacher had snuck in a question that was quite easy to solve with advanced knowledge of calculus, but not possible to solve with simple high school math. I hadn’t thought about it at all when I took the test as I just answered everything consecutively without skipping questions.

I’d gotten lax and didn’t even need to think when answering questions these days. My brain was on autopilot while watching the clouds drifting by out the window.

In the end, I answered the question that required calculus to answer. I’d just claim it was coincidentally something I learned while watching a random video online.

With that, it should dissipate any concerns regarding academic dishonesty.

In a way, it was a good thing I randomly answered questions correct and incorrect between the questions I’d previously answered and those I hadn’t answered. This would lead to an inconclusive answer as to whether I was cheating or just holding back. I could attribute it to recognizing some of the questions as being the same,  What just scaled, and simply not remembering all of the questions that were on the midterm.

It would make them question how good my memory was and whether I’d actually be able to remember all the answers if I’d truly gotten access to tests and answers beforehand. The fact that I answered some of the ones I hadn’t answered before correctly and some of the ones I’d previously gotten correct, incorrect this time would confuse them.

But what sealed the deal was this one question beyond the scope of high school. Getting it correct despite them changing it would just show I coincidentally was able to answer it without any cheap tricks.

I’d done so in front of my homeroom teacher after all. I didn’t make a single suspicious action the entire time.

When I put down my pen to signal I was finished checking my answers like a good boy, Mr. Oz asked, “You’re done? Right on time.”

“Oh? It’s been fifty minutes already? I hadn’t noticed.” That was of course a lie as usual. I always kept tabs on the time to finish right at the end.

When he picked up my test and scanned through my answers he asked, “Did you rush? You never finish your tests or exams within the time limit. I was even considering giving you some extra time if you couldn’t finish all the questions.”

“I did rush a little but I noticed some of the questions looked the same as the midterm.”

“Some of them only?”

“I recognized about half of them, so it helped me finish within the time limit for once.”

“I… see…” Mr. Oz frowned when he said that.

You’re not getting anything out of me even if you play the good cop role, Mr. Oz. I know how this stuff works. The bad cop is out of the room while the good cop acts like your friend, as though he’s on your side. But too bad for you, I have no friends.

Mr. Oz took out a pen and graded my solutions and answers.

Twn minutes later when he got to the end, I played dumb and asked, “what score did I get?”

“You’re doing this intentionally, aren’t you?”

“Intentionally? What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb. You’re getting 75% on all your tests and exams. If it happened once or twice it might be a simple coincidence, but I’ve checked with other teachers and you always get 75% on their tests as well.”

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“It’s really just a coincidence. Maybe I’m just cursed or something.”

“Cursed? As if such a curse exists. Ran, do you feel bored in classes?”

Huh? I had a strange sense of déjà vu when I was suddenly asked such a question. I’d definitely been asked this question in the past. Was it in high school? It… might have been.

It might have been in elementary school, but I couldn’t remember too well. It’s possible I was asked this on more than one occasion in my life.

“What’s wrong?”

“Uh… sorry, I feel like I’ve been asked this question by someone a long time ago.” I closed my eyes, zoned out, and fell into a deep state of thought as I dug through my memories.

If I recall correctly, there was a time in elementary school where we had to do a weird series of tests that weren’t for grades. I only vaguely remembered being pulled out of class and having to do them. I’d buried my memories from that time deep in the back of my mind, so it was hard to remember. 

Were they IQ tests? They never told us what they were back then, but yes, they definitely were.

That was one of the times I was asked this question. I’d been put on a watch list when I naively admitted after they administered their tests that I found classes too easy and that I was bored with them. 

My mother taught me a lot from a young age, and strangely enough, it turned out the curriculum in this country was actually pretty low-level compared to what was taught in a backwater third-world country like my mother’s. It was about two grade levels behind what kids in her home country had to learn at the same age.

After I made the mistake to admit I was bored, I was put into a grade four-five split class. There were only about four fourth-grade students in that class. At that time, I was treated like a misfit in class and I was unwelcome. I suppose the fifth graders felt they’d been belittled by being put together with some fourth-grade brats. 

The same thing happened the following year, I was placed in a grade five-six split class where my position in the class’s social hierarchy remained unchanged. My last year in elementary school was finally an all grade six class, but I’d been separated from most of those kids for two years by that point and I was treated as an outcast even amongst kids my age.

After that bad experience in elementary school, with a fresh start in mind, I kept my head down in middle school to avoid any trouble. I never tried at all, I allowed my grades to gradually drop off. All of my time was spent on anime and video games. I didn’t bother paying attention in class anymore, I just slept all the time. I completely slipped off the radar and whatever watch list I’d been put on.

The government in this country conducted studies and research on IQ in early childhood to see where those students ended up later on in life. It was to see if IQ could be used as an indicator of future success. If it was, they planned to focus more of their resources on the development of children with high IQs.

I only discovered, later on, I was one of those unknowing guinea pigs part of one of their stupid studies. In the end, though, IQ didn’t mean jack shit in terms of being an indicator of success. In fact, a lot of those with high IQs didn’t bother to seek out success. They’d often go through their own sort of mental hurdles in life and suffer for their intelligence instead.

Many would become reclusive and distant from society. As with everything, there was too much of a good thing even for intelligence. Being too intelligent was a double-edged sword if your personality wasn’t a good match for your level of intelligence.

What the government really needed to do was to focus on molding personalities by providing a good environment. It couldn’t be too easy of an environment though. A certain level of hardship was required to build character in children. 

There was a delicate balance required. If they took away something like bullying from the equation altogether, you ended up with entitled children who were out of touch with reality and didn’t understand how the outside world worked.

They’d be disconnected from the real world if they never faced any form of pain as they matured. But if they experienced too much pain, they became broken defective dolls. Raising children was such a delicate task.

Haaaaaah. But anyway... aside from elementary school, I believe the one other time I’d been asked this question was by a teacher in this high school. It was a teacher in my second year when I started to put some effort into school for the sake of acquiring scholarship money. If my memory was correct, he was my... computer science teacher.

As for the identity of that computer science teacher… Well, he was right in front of me. No wonder I found the question so nostalgic.

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