"Teacher Huang, could it be that he cheated?"
Lin Jinfen thought for a moment and said.
"That's possible."
Huang Yilian nodded, but after a while, she shook her head and added, "No, it's not possible."
"What do you mean, Teacher Huang? Why not?"
"At first, I thought so too. But from what I saw while grading, Xia Hui had the highest score in the class on the multiple-choice section. Especially on a few really difficult questions, he got them right. On the other hand, students who are usually better at English, like Jiang Weiwei and Liu Guiquan, didn't get them right. Even if Xia Hui wanted to cheat, he wouldn't be able to."
"That is a bit strange."
The two teachers frowned.
A student who normally did terribly in English had suddenly scored high.
This should've been a happy surprise, but instead, the two teachers couldn't bring themselves to feel happy at all.
"Hah, Teacher Lin, Teacher Huang, if you ask me, that Xia Hui just got super lucky. I mean, it's just multiple choice. Sometimes people just get lucky. You don't need to show your thought process, just pick A, B, C, or D at random."
Ye Fei chimed in with a laugh.
"Could he really just be that lucky?"
"Forget it, Teacher Huang. Ask him about it tomorrow when you have a chance. For now, let's focus on tallying the scores."
"Okay."
The two of them were still skeptical, but they couldn't make sense of it right now, so they had to set it aside for the time being.
"Zhang Yuan, 80."
"Wang Xiaoli, 89."
"Guo Lifang, 93."
One student's score after another was recorded until only one remained.
"Huang Yifan."
When Huang Yilian reached the last name, she paused.
"Teacher Huang, come on, read it, what did Huang Yifan get?"
"Um..."
Huang Yilian looked awkward, clearly hesitant to say it out loud.
"What's with that? Did Huang Yifan do badly again? Well, that's no surprise. In Class 2, the worst two in English are Huang Yifan and Xia Hui. But at least Xia Hui is salvageable; he's good at other subjects. Huang Yifan, though? He's way worse. Not only is his English bad, but his other subjects are a mess, too. Only math was passable this time, and even that was just a lucky break."
"He did do pretty badly."
Seeing the score, Huang Yilian felt like crying.
When she was grading, this score nearly drove her mad.
It was the worst English score any of her students had ever gotten.
"What is it then? Don't tell me he only got, like, ten-something."
Seeing her reaction, Lin Jinfen seemed to have a guess. "Getting just over ten in English really is rare."
Everyone knew that in English exams, the multiple-choice section made up the bulk, usually over 85%, sometimes more. That meant even if you knew nothing about English but could at least pick answers, you might still get around thirty points.
But based on Huang Yilian's tone, it seemed like Huang Yifan had broken a new record for low scores.
Yet after Lin Jinfen guessed ten-something, Huang Yilian looked even more exasperated.
"Teacher Lin, if Huang Yifan had scored ten-something, I wouldn't be this upset. I'd just think he was really unlucky this time. But the thing is, he didn't even get into the double digits."
"What..."
Now, even Lin Jinfen was stunned.
"Don't tell me… he scored in the single digits?"
Oh god! Could that really be possible?
A 120-point English test, with 100 points from multiple-choice alone, and he scored a single-digit?
But Huang Yilian still shook her head. "Teacher Lin, when I saw this score, I really felt like I'd failed as an English teacher. Huang Yifan didn't get 20, not ten. Not even a single digit. He got... zero."
"Zero?"
Lin Jinfen thought she had misheard.
"You're saying Huang Yifan scored a zero?"
"No way."
Huang Yilian nodded helplessly. "Yes! Zero."
"This… this score, if word gets out, even if other teachers don't laugh at us, we'll be embarrassed ourselves."
"Teacher Huang, you're joking, right?"
Lin Jinfen still couldn't believe it.
She wasn't the English teacher, but she was Huang Yifan's homeroom teacher.
And Tieshikou Middle School hadn't seen a zero in ages.
Especially not in Class 2, which was a key class.
For a student in a key class to score zero in English, how does that even happen?
Thank goodness this was just a small monthly quiz, not a midterm, final, or district-wide exam. If the principal found out a student scored zero on a big exam, they'd be crucified.
"I get it, maybe Huang Yifan didn't answer anything and just handed in a blank sheet."
That would actually be better.
A blank paper still gets a zero, but that's on the student, not the teacher.
If the student answered everything and still got zero, well, that's harder to excuse.
"It wasn't blank. Huang Yifan answered all the questions."
Looking at the exam paper, Huang Yilian felt completely defeated.
She was deeply discouraged. "Teacher Lin, this is Huang Yifan's test."
Lin Jinfen took the paper from her and glanced through it.
All the multiple-choice questions had been answered.
As for the essay, he clearly had no idea what to write.
But out of the nearly seventy multiple-choice questions, Huang Yifan didn't get a single one right.
So, his final score in English was… zero.
Zero.
What a brutal number.
Even though they were teachers and this was just a student's score, it still hit them hard.
They felt like they had failed.
Was there something wrong with their teaching methods?
Were they being too strict in class?
Or had they criticized Huang Yifan too harshly before?
Both of them were asking themselves the same questions.
"Teacher Lin, what should we do?"
Huang Yilian sighed. She really didn't know how to handle this.
"Let me think."
Lin Jinfen also felt a headache coming on. She hadn't expected this and had no good solution.
"Maybe… call his parents in for a talk?"
Although their personalities differed, Lin Jinfen was stricter, while Huang Yilian was gentler, both teachers were responsible and cared about their students.
Seeing a student get a zero and doing nothing about it would be irresponsible.
"I agree. After all, a student's education isn't just up to the teachers. The parents need to be involved, too."
"Alright, let's do that. Don't feel too bad, Teacher Huang. I'll handle Huang Yifan's case. Tomorrow, I'll ask him to bring his parents in."
"Let's both do it. I want to understand him better, too."
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