CH 38.1

On-the-spot Listening (1)

Three days after the monthly exam, in the office.

Old Jian looked at Ruan Qingmu in front of him, mightily took a sip of his tea, and spoke. “Student Ruan Qingmu, I want to give you praise first for this monthly exam.”

He shook the Chinese exam papers in front. “Except for the essay, there’s a great improvement in your grades. It’s very good and I’m very pleased!”

It had been a few days since the monthly exam on Monday and Tuesday and the exam papers for every subject had been marked. As the class teacher, the person who had risen to the top was not one of the subject representatives or among his top students. He didn’t know how it happened, but it was unexpectedly Ruan Qingmu.

After all, he was a newly promoted class officer. Moreover, this kid had talked big last time and said he would get into the top 100 for two subjects in the midterm exam. Although he knew this was just a casual bluff, he couldn’t help but be moved by it – could this student, in fact, get this done?

It was still a while until the midterm exam. It was already a good thing for him, even if he improved a little bit in this month’s monthly exam!

Ruan Qingmu stretched his head and looked at his papers.

Oh… he only got 98 out of the total 150 points.

“You got 73 of the 90 points in the basic knowledge in the front of the exam. It’s very good. There’s a big improvement, especially in the modern era section. You’ve made up a lot for your weakness in this subject. Not bad.”

Old Jian pointed out the part in the front. “It’s only been a month, remarkable!”

Ruan Qingmu tilted his head and looked at him. “Teacher, why is the essay score so low?”

Old Jian had a constipated look on his face. “This is the reason why I called you here. I want to talk to you about it.”

He intertwined his fingers and heavily knocked on the table. “Your essay is well written, well organized, and has a clear theme…”

A nearby Chinese teacher walked past while holding exam papers in his arms and couldn’t help but poke his head inside out of curiosity. “Then, why did you only give him 25 points?”

That teacher laughed as soon as he saw the essay title and loudly read it out: “<<Procedural Justice is All Bullshit!>> – Aiya, your class student’s theme is very rousing.”

Old Jian’s face turned red. “If you say so, could it get 25 points in the college entrance examination grading?”

He turned around and faced Ruan Qingmu. “I reckon it will be good if they give you 20 points. According to the grading rules, this is an unhealthy idea, emotional bias, and inability to see the topic from a dialectical perspective. You, ah. There’s no way you can write an essay like this, do you understand?”

Ruan Qingmu tilted his head and looked at him with eyes full of pure innocence. “Teacher, one’s words reflect one’s thinking. Didn’t you teach me this? If I can’t freely express myself, why do I need to write it down?”

Old Jian drew a breath of cold air and surprisingly didn’t know what to say.

“Teacher, I think my points and grounds align with the topic, going on to fill my mind with content full of sincere feelings…”

“Enough, enough. You’re not the one who grades it. It won’t be me too in the future, but the college entrance examination grading teacher!” Old Jian paused and sighed. “What you wrote has some truth, but it’s a preposterous argument. Even if you don’t think it’s a preposterous argument, it definitely won’t get high marks.

“All right, we won’t discuss whether your theme is right or wrong. I only wanted to say that you strayed off topic this time.” Old Jian sincerely said, “The argumentative essay should be based on the topic. Even if your viewpoint is biased and the teacher who grades it can tolerate it, you expressed a large paragraph that specifically wrote about the implementation to ensure substantial justice – something about using violence to suppress violence, robbing the rich to help the poor, for something about the family feud and getting rid of violence. This is all off-topic, do you understand?”

Ruan Qingmu didn’t retort this time. After thinking for a while, he happily nodded. “Mm, what you said is right. I went off-topic here. I’ll pay attention to that next time.”

Old Jian released a sigh. He just knew it. As long as what he said made sense, this child would be willing to be obedient!

Ruan Qingmu mulled it over in his head for a while. “Then, would it be better if I add another supporting paragraph here? I just watched a movie called <<The Godfather>> a few days ago, and it was very amazing. I think it’s pretty suitable to include it here, am I right, teacher?”

Old Jian choked on his tea. “Cough, cough! Enough! You still want to mess around!”

What did he mean by <<The Godfather>>? Was he talking about the part where they cut a horse’s head and put it on a silver plate as a demonstration? Or the scene where the old father’s daughter had been dishonored and in order to get his revenge, he begged the Mafia to help him get justice for his child?

It wasn’t easy to raise kids these days!

“Think about it and write well. Don’t deviate from the topic. Make a balance between both sides and pay attention to dialectical analysis. I think you’ll have no problem getting over 40 marks for this essay. With this, you will get 113 points!” Old Jian excitedly slapped his thighs. “Look at that. You will get a quite good score soon!”

As he raised his head and saw the Chinese teacher from the next-door class, his face turned red. “It’s already considered good in our class.”

The class teacher of class 1, Teacher Huai, snorted from a few desks away, her voice not too loud. “Did you say English and Chinese are easy to learn? How is your English?”

Ruan Qignmu raised his head and looked at her.

Tch. This petty person actually still remembered this.

Old Jian felt a bit awkward. “Ah, I haven’t asked the English teacher.”

Teacher Huai cooly glanced at the desk beside her. “Oh, the papers are here.”

Class 9’s English teacher wasn’t here. The papers on the desk looked like they had all been marked but hadn’t been handed out yet.