Hiraya pick up her pen and began answering, her movements fast and fluid. Numbers flowed easily from her mind to the page, each calculation was fast and precise. While around her, the quiet scratching of pens filled the room, with the occasional sighs and murmured of frustration.
Meanwhile, Stella sat with her knitted brows as she worked through the test. In her past life, she missed the placement exam because she woke up late. But this time, she woke uo early, quiet confident she could at least get more than half of the answers right. But she didn't expected that the questions were harder than she thought! The first question alone required multiple steps and careful precision. She clenched her pen tightly, her eyes darting between the paper exam and her paper scratch work.
I can't fall behind. No this time. She thought as her heart pounding.
She gripped her pen tightly, her focus intense that she barely noticed the passing time. But as the minutes tickey by, a gnawing unease settled in her chest. The numbers didn't always add up as cleanly as she wanted, and her calculations often required erasing and redoing it.
.
.
The bell rang sharply at 9:10 AM, marking the end of the mathematics exam. Ms. Liu walked around the room, collecting the papers as the students stretched and exchange whispers.
"How was it?" - Lin Jing asked. She was sitting beside Hiraya in the front row so she saw that Hiraya put her pen down and stopped answering so she glance at the clock in the wall and it was only 8:30 AM! That means it only took her 50 minutes to finished the entire fifty questions!
She know that Hiraya is smart, but she didn't expected that she finished the exam so fast.
"It was fine." Hiraya replied calmly
"You make it sound so easy." - Lin Jing said with a laugh
"I swear, my brain hurts already. I couldn't even answer thirteen questions, they are too damn hard."
"Yeah. It so hard. I also didn't answer nine of them. How about you Sun Yi?" - Chen Mei ask
The tree of them sat near Hiraya as always so they can easily chat.
"Ha, why even bother asking me? I couldn't answer seventeen of them." - Sun Yi sigh
Hiraya look at them as she asked Sun Yi. "Didn't you review the book? It was given at the final day of our second year. You have enough time to at least familiar yourself in it."
Chen Mei laugh as she said. "You know how Sun Yi is. She smart but she didn't take her study seriously since she is the only daughter and the youngest in their family."
Lin Jing nodded in agreement. "That's right. Her brothers and parents dotted her the most."
"Hmm. My family didn't required me to rank at the top. It was already enough if i can stay in the top 100 of the national ranking at the end of the final exam. So I don't really need to work hard this early. It just making me give countless headaches." - Sun Yi laughed
Hiraya just shrugged and couldn't say anything more since it seems like they know what they are doing.
After a few minutes, the English exam finally began.
Hiraya scan the four pages paper and saw what the exam about. It is divided into Four sections.
The first section is a Reading Comprehension, which is 10 points. Its about an excerpt from a piece of classical literature. It was from Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. And it only have two questions. An Inferential Question and Analytical Question.
The second section is Sentence Translation, 25 points. They need to translate the 5 standza chinese poem into english, making sure it was fluent and grammatically correct.
The third section is Creative Expression, 40 points. They need to write a short narrative inspired by the following qoute.
And the fourth section is Critical Essay Writing, they need to the essay base on the given promt. And it is 50 points.
Seeing those things, Hiraya pick up her pen, answering them easily.
While Stella stared at her own paper, her mind racing as her hand kep trembling slightly as she wrote hesitantly. She can speak and understand english, but that was only for daily conversations!
The bell rang twice at noon, signaling the end of the class, which also mean the end of their exam. The students passed their history exam paper as the room was filled with exhausted sigh and groan. Students left the examination rooms in small groups as their voices mix of relief and apprehension as they made way towards the cafeteria.
Hiraya sat in the cafeteria with Lin Jing, Chen Mei, and Sun Yi, their trays laden with steaming bowls of noodles and dumplings, and rice as well as small portions of meat and stir fry vegetables.
"So, what do you think is the content of the Chinese Literature exam?" - Sun Yi asked
"I don't really have any idea. I just know that it will be harder than English." - Lin Jing said with a sigh. It was not a secret that the subject she hates the most is Chinese Literature. It was damn hard and gives her headache.
"Well, I think it will be reading comprehension of modern and classical texts, or classical Chinese translations, or just essay about a classical qoutes. Anyway, it will be gonna be hard since our langauge already been simplied for how many times. Some modern Chinese word doesn't even have the same meaning as the old word. Ha! What a pain." - Chen Mei said. After all, they are only 17 years old and they don't have time to study all those things and learn about it all when they still need to study other subjects.
"Hiraya, what about you? I know you can guessed most correctly about the exam content right?" - Chen Mei aksed
"Well, There should be Classical Texts Analysis and we need to answers the questions related to it. Classical to Modern Translations, as well as an Argumentative Essay written in Classical Chinese. Hmm, I think the Essay should be at least 70-80 points, while the translation is around 50 points and the analysis should be around 20-30points." - Hiraya seriously explained.
The three girls couldn't help but groan. It is damn hard!