Grading fees

Taking exams in six subjects over five continuous hours was entirely different from taking them separately. Allocating time sensibly and deciding how to tackle questions of different difficulties could make a considerable difference in this kind of exam.

Less than half an hour in, the sports field was already full of panting, turning heads, and bewildered looks.

Of course, a true academic ace would not care what form the exam took. They would simply crush everything in their path. Unfortunately, Xibao Middle School had no such formidable students.

In fact, Xibao Middle School's teaching staff could not produce a true academic ace. Aside from someone like Yang Rui, only a phenomenally gifted child prodigy could grasp a text's meaning after reading it several times. Otherwise, with just a few textbooks, a pitiful shortage of supplementary materials, and teachers who were still learning themselves, how could anyone possibly master all the knowledge covered in secondary school?

After all, even the people setting the Gaokao papers at the time did not know what they ought to test.

Their Gaokao questions frequently exceeded the requirements of the exam syllabus, while the syllabus itself often demanded more than the textbooks covered.

Something that could easily happen was this: a teacher on the exam-setting committee spotted a good question, or came up with one, slapped his forehead in excitement, and put it straight into the paper. As for whether the knowledge it tested exceeded the syllabus-the syllabus wasn't my work!

Faced with this situation, the higher-ups merely chuckled. What could the students do?

At a township school like Xibao Middle School, a clever student could learn the standard equation and geometric properties of a parabola, study its graph independently, and understand the concepts. But if the textbook contained nothing about hyperbolas, and the teacher simply read from the book, how was he supposed to know how to derive the chord-length formula for hyperbolas sharing asymptotes?

Even if the young Gauss had attended such a township secondary school and received the same education, all he could have done when confronted with a question like that was stare wide-eyed and ask, "Are you kidding me?"

The knowledge in secondary-school textbooks was distilled to its very essence. It represented the essentials that countless predecessors-or rather, countless superbly educated academic geniuses of earlier generations-had spent years studying and summarizing. Without sufficient education, a budding academic ace might conceivably defy the odds and work out some of that knowledge independently. But if he claimed to have worked it all out, the elderly Gauss would have been shocked back to life: "Are you kidding me?"

Adding the numbers from 1 to 100 and discovering arithmetic symmetry in the process made a lovely little story. But hoping to invent the formula for an arithmetic progression yourself was dreaming.

Playing the part of an invigilator, Yang Rui made a circuit of the sports field and gained an intuitive understanding of the students' academic level at Xibao Middle School.

It was appalling!

Previously, he had only paid attention to his classmates. Just as the school treated the repeaters' class as its priority, only those students repeating their final year had even somewhat respectable results-and those were merely equivalent to the average first-year senior high student of later years.

As for the other graduating students, they probably did not even measure up to third-year junior high students.

Five years of primary school, two years of junior high, and another two years of senior high meant that by the end of nine years of compulsory education, they had already graduated from senior high.

But losing three years of schooling naturally had consequences.

First-year junior high students struggled with basic arithmetic, second-year junior high students could not write proofs, first-year senior high students did not understand functions, and second-year senior high students discovered they knew nothing at all...

Yang Rui silently estimated that, at this level, probably no more than 20 percent would score a total of 300 on the six papers worth 100 points each. Among the graduating class, that figure would probably fall below 10 percent, because the second-year senior high students and the repeaters were taking the same papers, at Gaokao difficulty.

"Without tremendous perseverance, seventy or eighty percent of the students here won't get into university." Yang Rui made that assessment from his perspective as a tutor.

Even in the same decade, the 1980s, students in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai had double-digit university admission rates. Some key secondary schools had admission rates comparable to those of schools in later years.

The idea that learning depended entirely on oneself was only wishful thinking, in any era. In learning and practice, the teaching came from the teacher, while the practice was one's own responsibility. Both outstanding teachers and outstanding students could change destinies, but the most successful-and those who succeeded most easily-were still excellent pupils under great teachers.

Yang Rui also took this time to reorganize his thoughts.

It was unrealistic to expect everyone to cross the narrow bridge of the Gaokao. Once this busy spell was over, he ought to find another path for the students who would not get in.

Still, finding a path comparable to the Gaokao would be extremely difficult. All things considered, even into the 1990s, the Gaokao remained the easiest, most straightforward route to upward social mobility.

At nine, students began going to the toilet one after another, and a few handed in their papers.

Yang Rui looked over the papers he received. Most came from students with fragile egos, though some belonged to students whose results were genuinely so poor that they had no hope of making the top quarter.

"Record the names of everyone who hands in early. If they apply to join the Rui Study Group, lower their evaluations." Being born in China meant playing life on nightmare difficulty. Being born in a township and having a fragile ego made it full-blown hell difficulty, requiring far greater resources.

"Understood." Huang Ren was extremely lean, but meticulous; one might say his mind was lean and sharp as well. Unlike the careless Wang Guohua or Cao Baoming, who focused on building muscle through bench presses, Huang Ren was not only good at the Rui Study Group's detailed work but genuinely enjoyed recordkeeping and allocation. He was a very suitable candidate for secretary-general.

Time ticked by, and by midnight, not a single person had completed even 80 percent of the questions.

Nevertheless, Yang Rui announced without hesitation, "The exam is over. Everyone stop writing. Invigilators, collect the papers."

"Give us another two hours. We haven't finished the questions. It's such a waste of all these papers." Sitting near the front, Xu Jing called out reluctantly.

That reasoning left Yang Rui rather speechless.

Yet when Teacher Lu heard her, he actually joined in. "Why not extend it by another two hours? A lot of students haven't even finished four papers. If we collect them now, using them again next time won't have the same effect."

"Extending it by two hours will defeat the purpose of the exam too. If they want papers to work on, there'll be plenty later. Besides, two hours past midnight is two in the morning. Plenty of these students normally go to bed at eleven. Doing papers while nodding off won't do much good either."

Teacher Lu had not expected Yang Rui to reject his "reasonable" suggestion without the slightest hesitation. Besides being surprised, he was reminded once again of how different Yang Rui was from other students.

Though Yang Rui had offered several reasons, a refusal was still a refusal. Moreover, Huang Ren and the other Rui Study Group students obeyed Yang Rui's orders first, and only then those of their homeroom teacher.

If Teacher Lu had to describe the feeling, it was as though he had been sidelined.

The thought of being "sidelined" only passed briefly through Teacher Lu's mind before he dismissed it. A school isn't an administrative agency. What's all this about being sidelined? Teachers aren't officials, either...

Had he been an official, he probably would have been more sensitive to it.

Looking at the heavy stacks of collected papers, Teacher Lu soon turned his thoughts elsewhere. After talking with several teachers he knew well, he sought out Yang Rui again and said, "How about we start grading the papers tonight?"

"Tonight? It's already midnight."

"That's all right. We used to stay up late quite often."

"That still isn't a good idea. There are so many papers, you couldn't finish them in one night anyway. Start tomorrow and spread them over two or three days. There's no need to rush."

"Everyone's waiting. The sooner we grade them, the sooner we'll be done." Teacher Lu insisted, "I asked a few teachers, and they're all willing to help. Losing one night's sleep won't matter."

Yang Rui thought it over and began to understand. "How about this? There's no need to make everyone finish grading in one night. Let's say the day after tomorrow. Finish grading before noon that day, and the grading fees will be calculated as three days' work."

Teacher Lu had not repeated his refusal of the grading fees, which meant he wanted them. His offer to grade papers overnight was probably also an attempt to show, through extra work, that he would not be getting the money for nothing...

Naturally, Yang Rui could not exploit the school's teachers like that. Besides, the grading fees would come out of the Rui Study Group's profits, which counted as collective property. Spending it placed no burden on him, so he readily promised six yuan for three days.

Only if the teachers also received tangible benefits could his prestige and influence at Xibao Middle School grow further. Otherwise, what would happen when his views clashed with theirs during Gaokao revision?

Persuading people through his academic prowess was one part of it; carefully building prestige and influence was another. Yang Rui had seen far too many examples during graduate school. The dean of a college, for instance, was not necessarily its strongest researcher, but his words carried the most weight-not only with ordinary students and teachers, but also with renowned supervisors who feared nothing. Administrative power could be used against those who did not lack money, pressure on funding against those who did not fear authority, and public-opinion "guidance" against those who neither feared nor lacked money. Schools, businesses, and government were all much the same.

Teacher Lu was both pleased and embarrassed. "It won't take three days. We can finish in one... two days at most."

He was not speaking for himself alone, but for the other teachers too, so he grew less certain when he mentioned one day.

Yang Rui smiled reassuringly. "Three days refers to the workload. If you finish in one or two days, all the better-that's completing the task ahead of schedule. And please don't worry about who's paying. Just treat it as coming from the school. The Rui Study Group is an organization under the school too, no different in principle from a school-run factory."

"A school-run factory, no less." Teacher Lu laughed. "All right, I'll let everyone know. We'll find one teacher for each subject and finish it tomorrow or the day after."

"No, count the junior and senior high divisions separately, with one teacher per subject for each. It would also be best to find two more teachers to double-check. The students worked hard on their answers. Mistakes in grading would really hurt."

"Huh? Wouldn't that take fourteen people?" Teacher Lu had originally planned to have six people handle everything. At six yuan each, that would already cost thirty-six yuan.

He had not expected a few words from Yang Rui to more than double that number.

Yang Rui shrugged. "Isn't that how we handle final exams? Each year has a hundred students now, and these papers are all fill-in-the-blank, short-answer, and extended-response questions. Grading them alone is exhausting enough. If we don't separate junior and senior high, the teachers will call me a skinflint taskmaster."

Teacher Lu laughed despite himself. "Grading papers for the school is different, after all."

Naturally, the threshold of happiness was different for extra income and regular income.

Yang Rui would have liked to involve every teacher in the school. The two extra checking positions were also there to prevent a teacher who wanted the grading fees from being unable to participate because of their subject, which would spoil things instead.

He took the envelope he had prepared from his pocket. "I've prepared two copies of each answer key. Please find people on that basis. If you can't find enough, it would be best to ask the teachers who finish first to do a little more, and divide the grading fees proportionately."

Faced with such clear payment arrangements, Teacher Lu could only agree to each point. He had no better ideas himself.

Only then did Yang Rui return and help the students carry the desks, chairs, and stools back to their respective classrooms.

Next, he stopped Huang Ren and handed him four sheets of paper. "Print these according to the number of students in each year. Quietly. Keep it absolutely secret."

"So mysterious." Smiling, Huang Ren unfolded the sheets Yang Rui had given him. After reading one, his thin face froze.

The large heading, "Teacher evaluation form," together with the scoring categories listed by teacher's name below and the weightings for class average scores and so forth, made Huang Ren's eyelids twitch. "What are you trying to do? If we print these and hand them out to students, people will think we're... we're rebelling again!"

"We rank students, so why can't we rank teachers?" Yang Rui scoffed. "I'm not punishing anyone. I'm only rewarding the teachers who rank near the top."

"Rewarding them? Students rewarding teachers?"

"We'll just call it teacher appreciation." Yang Rui concealed nothing and went through his plan. It required his classmates' cooperation anyway.

Huang Ren's expression changed several times as he listened. Only after a long while did he say, "If you do this, won't the teachers who rank near the bottom hate your guts?"

"If nobody hates you, you're mediocre," Yang Rui said calmly. "Some people are suited to teaching, and some aren't. Some know whether they're suited to it, and some don't. We have to tell them. The Gaokao is already hard enough, with hordes of people trying to cross a single narrow bridge. We can't make things even harder for students just to save those teachers' face."

"You've got some nerve." As Huang Ren said it, he actually began to smile.