The other neighbors all suddenly appeared in the group chat. “Yeah, I remember that Hu’s child is in primary school. Which grade is he in?”
“Grade Four,” Hu said, “I am worried about him very much. Both his mother and I were good students when we were at school, but I don’t know why he hates his school so much. Mr. Tan, I know your youngest daughter is a student of Beijing University. That’s the top school in this country, which ranks first together with Hua University. Please give me some useful suggestions. My child nearly drives me crazy. I found him a tutor, but he didn’t study hard. Although I don’t want him to depend on tutors at such a young age, I have no other choice.”
Tan Wenci cleared his throat awkwardly. Then he said, “Oh, buddy, I’m not showing off, but I need to tell you the truth. I have never worried about my daughter’s performance at school. Nor did I find her a tutor or let her take extra-curricular classes. To be honest, I have no idea how she became so clever, but she’s the smartest in my family. She can learn everything after one try. She skipped grades in her primary school. In the end, she stopped skipping grades because she said that was too boring. Anyway, I don’t know how she did it.”
Tan Wenci said that he wasn’t showing off, but her words made all the neighbors jealous.
While Tan Wenci was sending red envelopes to her neighbors to celebrate his daughter’s achievement, Tan Mo received a call from President Mu.
“Tan Mo, have you seen the competition result?” From the other side came President Mu’s excited voice, as if he was talking to her face to face.
“Yes, I just saw it. Besides me, all my classmates did very well in the competition. I guess this time, Beijing University will win the most medals.” Tan Mo was also very happy at the moment. She knew she was not the only one who did well in the competition, which would convince other universities that Beijing University was the most excellent. Because all the people could see that the overall strength of Beijing University was higher than that of Hua University. Therefore, Hua University would never come up with another excuse this time.
“Thank you, Tan Mo,” President Mu said. “It’s all because you did our school a big favor to train the students with simulated exercises.”
Only President Mu, Professor Yao, Professor Guo, and Tan Mo knew about this.
In the first place, it should have been Professor Guo who needed to design the exercises. However, his time was quite limited. What’s more, when Professor Guo discussed it with Tan Mo again, he found that Tan Mo had a better grasp of the structure of the mathematical competition.
Although Professor Guo had been sorting out the questions of the previous mathematical competition these years, it was not as efficient as Tan Mo’s method. She worked out all those competition questions and came up with some ideas. Naturally, it was impossible for her to figure out the same questions exactly, but she gradually grasped the similarities and differences among them and designed many simulated questions for the students based on that.
Professor Yao had personally seen how Tan Mo designed similar questions by herself, so he discussed it with President Mu and Professor Guo and then asked Tan Mo to design a few sets of training exercise papers for the students who participated in the competition.
After the papers were finished, Tan Mo would design more. If the students made mistakes, Professor Guo and Tan Mo would explain the right solution to them.
Until now, the students were still unaware of the fact that those papers were designed by Tan Mo. They thought that it was professor Guo who designed them.
When participating in the competition, the students found that although the competition questions were not exactly the same, the steps of their solutions were quite familiar. They had seen similar questions, so they could apply what they had learned for this competition. Naturally, the questions wouldn’t be very difficult for them.
After all, those who were able to get admitted to Beijing University and participate in the mathematics competition were all top students. They were very smart. As long as these questions had something in common, they would be able to work them out.
Thanks to Tan Mo’s training before the competition. The number of medals Beijing University won this year had increased by one-third compared to last year.
Of course, Tan Mo did not predict all of the questions. After all, there were numerous kinds of questions in the mathematics competition. It was really a one-in-a-million chance, and everybody knew how difficult it was to do that.
In conclusion, Tan Mo had contributed a lot to the achievement Beijing University had got in the mathematics competition this year.
Tan Mo was still modest. “All I did was just to design some training papers. I think this honor belongs to Professor Guo and the students at Beijing University. They all worked hard. Otherwise, no matter how many papers I designed, it would be useless.”
“Yes, this honor belongs to everyone,” President Mu said happily. However, he knew that without Tan Mo’s efforts, they would not make such great progress this year. In terms of the total number of medals, gold, silver, and bronze medals, they all exceeded those of Hua University.
Beijing University had done so well in this competition that everybody knew it was a complete victory.
After hanging up the phone, President Mu immediately sent some people to discuss what rewards to give to the students who won the medals. Then, he clicked on the phone screen and entered a WeChat group chat.
There were already quite a number of people who had spoken in the group. They were all congratulating Beijing University for its excellent achievement in the mathematics competition this year.
After taking a closer look at the names of these group members, President Mu found they turned out to be the presidents of different universities.
However, the presidents of the Six Prestigious Schools were the most active in the group. Although they were busy with their work, they were still chatting with each other.
As for the presidents from the other universities, more or less, they felt that their schools were inferior to the Six Prestigious Schools, so they were not confident to speak in the group chat. They also knew there wouldn’t be a day when the Six Prestigious Schools would congratulate them. They couldn’t even win the Ancient Text Competition, not to mention a competition like this.
This was a sad story, but it was just the truth.
The Six Prestigious Schools were famous, so were their teachers. And because of that, all the good students would come to these schools. For those students with good grades, Six Prestigious Schools would become their prior choice.
There might be some students who were attracted by the high scholarships, but that was a rare situation.
Therefore, how would the other schools be able to compete with the Six Prestigious Schools?
As a result, the Six Prestigious Schools had won all kinds of prizes in almost all the competitions and activities.
As for the other schools, although they were famous as well, they were still not as competitive as the Six Prestigious Schools. Students who could get admitted to the Six Prestigious Schools would not consider other schools.
That’s why these principals were so depressed. But of course, they still need to show up and congratulate the presidents of the schools whose students had won medals. After all, no matter how dissatisfied they were, they still had to show some respect.
However, after all the presidents had finished congratulating them, President Mu still did not show up. After waiting for a long time, they finally saw President Mu’s message. “Thank you, everyone. This honor belongs to the students. They did well in the competition. They have made the whole school proud of them!”
President Wen from Jiang University said, “We were just wondering where you had gone. I guess you must have been busy congratulating the students, right?”
President Mu said, “That’s right. Not only did I congratulate the students, but I also got people to decide the rewards for the students. They have achieved such great honor this time. The number of medals is one-third more than last year. I guess the previous reward standards are no longer applicable this year. They need to be raised a little. That’s why I am late.”
“And,” President Mu added, “there are too many students to congratulate. My fingers get so numb after typing the letters for such a long time..”
