The Right Answer
Marcus walked past Arielle’s table.
When he realized that Arielle had finished the multiple-choice questions in ten minutes, he could not help
but walk toward Donovan and whisper, “Mr. Baxter, this test is different from the others. Did you not raise
the difficulty level of it? If it’s too easy and many get a good score, it’ll be tough to choose those five
people from them.”
Confused, Donovan said, “I did raise the difficulty level, especially for the advanced mathematics test. I
took many questions from Maxwell University’s tests.”
Equally confused, Marcus scratched his head. “That’s weird…”
“What’s the matter?” Donovan wondered out loud.
“It’s nothing. Maybe she’s just talented,” Marcus muttered under his breath before returning to the chair
at the back of the classroom.
Donovan swept his eyes across the class. When he saw that many were holding their pens but not
writing anything, he rapped on his desk and said, “Listen up. It’s a tough paper this time, but you only
have the same amount of time as the other tests to complete it. If you come across questions you can’t
answer, skip them and do the others. Don’t keep lingering on the same question and waste your time on
that one question only.”
Donovan’s words were a cold bucket of water that woke Wendy up. She hastily abandoned the second
multiple-choice question to start the next.
Time ticked away. Soon, the advanced mathematics test was over.
“Put down your pens,” Donovan said. “Whoever doesn’t will be disqualified from the test. Mr. Brown,
please collect their papers.”
“Sure.”
Marcus stood up and began taking the papers, starting from the last row.
Soon, the papers were all with Marcus, and he left the classroom with Donovan.
None of the students in the room was joyous at the end of the test.
Wendy turned to the boy beside her and asked, “Did you finish your paper?”
He shook his head. “No. I just randomly picked an answer for quite a few questions, and I only managed
to do three questions of the next section.”
Wendy became at ease when she heard his answer.
The boy beside her was one of the top five students in the class, but even he could only do three
questions in the second test. That meant that the other students would do even lesser.
On the other hand, she did four.
Her melancholic mood turned delightful. Right as she was about to stand up and leave the classroom,
she saw the boy running toward Arielle.
“Boss, do you remember which answers you chose for the multiple-choice questions? I’d like to see if
I’ve gotten the right ones.”
Almost immediately, the other students swarmed toward Arielle as well.
“Arielle, what was the answer to the first question? Was it one?”
“Did you manage to do the last question in the paper? I didn’t even get to read it.”
Everyone was butting into the conversation as they huddled around Arielle.
In the end, the boy was the one to shout, “Stop cutting in line! I was the first to ask. Boss, do you
remember what your choices were?”
Arielle nodded. She then uttered, “I do. It was A, C, D…”
Wendy tried to leave, but it was as if her legs were not hers, and her mind was out of her control as it
compared Arielle’s answers with her own ones.
Six of her questions were the same as Arielle’s, but four were not.
Just then, she heard the boy wailing, “I’ve only done six right!”
Wendy scowled.
What does he mean? Does he think that Arielle’s answers are all right?
Aren’t they thinking too highly of her? Don’t they know how difficult this paper is?
I really doubt that Arielle will be able to get all of the questions right.
While it was true that she was not certain she had gotten those four right, she was certain that Arielle
must have done something wrong somewhere.
Gritting her teeth, Wendy decided to leave. Hence, she raised her foot and went out of the room.
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