Chapter 155: Failing a course
The day Nanjing University posted the previous semester's final grades was, in truth, a painful one. The Freshman College bulletin boards displayed everyone's results in rank order, with a clear hierarchy from first to last.
Students who could get into this university had a certain innate pride, after all. That pride also represented a kind of self-respect. But here, surrounded by formidable competitors who were all experts at exam-oriented education, being far outstripped by others inevitably bred a powerful sense of inferiority.
Thus, the final exam rankings posted at the start of term were often something students could barely bear to look at, approaching them with trepidation. Those in the top hundred on that list essentially occupied a lofty position above the rest.
Getting into Nanjing University alone was enough to be hailed as elite. Rising above countless others and standing out like a crane among chickens made someone the elite of the elite. Wasn't looking down on everyone else from that height its own particular pleasure? These solid, genuine grades represented a person's intelligence, or some ability recognized by the mainstream. Those supposed athletic stars, elite debaters, foreign-language geniuses, club mainstays, and high-ranking Student Union officials-why should girls like them? Why should they be so popular? Compared with these posted results, weren't they all so much hot air?
Ultimately, the exam results posted by every school and department built the pleasure of a small minority on the suffering of the masses. And the university administration really did have some experts who knew exactly how to manipulate students' mindsets. Every school and department posted its final exam rankings on the bulletin boards in its main teaching building, where everyone would see them going up and down, in and out, every day. Prominent and glaring, they