Pre-Exam Mode

Exams were the greatest challenge Jiuyou Academy students faced from enrollment to graduation.

They were unending, with neither beginning nor end.

From placement exams to pop quizzes, then monthly exams, quarterly exams, practical exams, professional competency tests, midterms, final exams, and so on. There were countless exam titles and all manner of different types.

But ultimately, Jiuyou Academy used exams to test how well students had mastered various magical subjects—and, beyond that, exams were also a means of ranking students and weeding out the mediocre to retain the best.

Among all these exams, final exams were the culmination. Because they carried the greatest weight on Jiuyou Academy students' transcripts, they were taken especially seriously and were thus known as the "big exams."

Zheng Qing felt this keenly at the start of the sixteenth week after enrollment.

Past exams—such as the various placement exams held at the beginning of the school year to assess students' foundations, the in-class tests for each subject during the learning process, or even the midterms two months earlier—regardless of their names, were ultimately just opportunities for students to identify and address their weaknesses. Doing well was naturally gratifying; doing poorly did not bring much trouble either. At most, they would sigh in front of their companions and make excuses like, "I fell asleep during the exam."

But the coming final exams were completely different.

It was like a carp about to leap over the Dragon Gate, poised to flick its tail and spring upward. If it made it across, a brand-new, easy world awaited; if it failed, it would face a bottomless abyss.

"This is the first big exam you have faced since entering First University and Jiuyou Academy. It tests how much you have truly learned since enrollment; it tests whether you have squandered your