Chapter 67: The Prestige of the National Science Top Scorer

"Indeed, what a fine name!"

"Judging by what you mean, his score is very high? Surely not the highest in the country, right?"

"No, there was a student with a perfect score; Liu Dapeng ranked second!"

"Well, that's not bad either. How are his usual grades?"

"He's completely unknown!"

"Un... I see!"

......

On July 30th, the grading of all college entrance examination papers was officially completed!

Ma Weimin held a meeting in the conference room with the heads of the various grading groups.

"The admission cutoff scores for arts and sciences in our province have been released.

For junior college, the arts cutoff is 350 points and sciences 340. For undergraduate programs, the arts cutoff is 408 points, with the key university line at 486; for sciences, the cutoff is 406, and the key university line is 478.

A total of over 98,000 exam papers were collected across the province. This year, a total of 18,900 students were admitted, yielding an overall admission rate of 19.3%.

Nationwide, 1.64 million students participated in the college entrance examination this year, with 480,000 admitted in total, representing a national admission rate of 29.3%.

Comrades, our province has a massive population and a vast number of students; the total population of the province is approaching 88 million.

When you factor in the 60 percent of students who are eliminated, our province's admission rate is bound to be even lower.

Thank you all for your hard work over the past twenty-plus days! You have made a tremendous contribution to selecting talent through the college entrance examination!"

Ma Weimin took the lead in applauding after he finished speaking, while the teachers below clapped half-heartedly.

Ma Weimin's point was crystal clear. Due to demographic reasons, the number of college entrance examination candidates in their province had exceeded 200,000, with nearly 100,000 actually making it to the exams. In the end, even including those admitted to junior colleges, fewer than 20,000 students made the cut. The 19.3% admission rate was ten percentage points lower than the national average.

Just look at Beijing's admission scores: 360 for sciences, with a key university line of 430, where even 490 points could get you into the University of Science and Technology of China or Northwestern Polytechnical University. In these central provinces of theirs, without at least 560 points, you couldn't even reach the threshold for dossier retrieval!

Looking at the sparse applause from the audience, Ma Weimin naturally understood what these teachers were thinking. As a major agricultural province, most things they produced failed to stand out. Luoyang used to be quite glorious, but now it had fallen quite a bit behind.

When the economy failed to rise, education naturally lagged behind as well. High schools in many other provinces had already completed their restructuring, and in more advanced regions, the six-year primary school system was fully in place. Meanwhile, the middle schools in their region were still in the middle of restructuring; if they could achieve full coverage over the next two years, that would already be a blessing.

"Alright, being born in the Central Plains is both their misfortune and their fortune.

Shandong and Hebei don't have low cutoffs either, and this time, the southern provinces of Hunan and Hubei, along with Jiangsu, have the highest cutoff scores. We still have a long and arduous road ahead of us!

The college entrance examination has never been won simply by having more people. Learn from our experiences, and let's hope for a bumper crop of great results in next year's exams!

This time, our province has secured the national top scorer in the science stream with an absolute advantage. He tested exceptionally well, and I presume all of you teachers have already seen his exam papers! I won't elaborate further here. Alright, meeting adjourned!"

Following the adjournment, the crowd dispersed in a scattered manner.

The exam papers had been sealed up. This very afternoon, the teachers would be able to leave the examination center, return to their respective schools, and after twenty days of busyness, enjoy a solid month of rest before welcoming the new cohort of freshmen!

"Director Ma, you're looking for us?"

"Teacher Liu, Teacher Xu, Teacher Zhang, please sit, take a seat! The three of you cultivating the national science top scorer this time has brought immense honor to our province. Since you were all Yang Xingwu's primary subject teachers, come and tell me about this student Yang!"

Liu Lounian, Xu Wenhua, and Zhang Lijuan felt a bit nervous upon hearing this.

Being worldly-wise, Liu Lounian was slightly stunned before snapping back to reality. He reached out to gently pull his two colleagues before speaking up:

"Student Yang Xingwu has excelled academically since childhood. Ever since village primary school, he displayed an exceptionally high aptitude for learning. He studies with great diligence and was awarded the title of 'Three-Good Student' every single semester.

After failing the entrance examination for technical secondary schools upon graduating from junior high, he entered our No. 6 Middle School. Over the past two years, we have witnessed his hard work firsthand. More than two months ago, he even collapsed in the classroom from overexertion, causing quite a stir throughout the school!"

"That's right, Yang Xingwu also worked extremely hard on foreign languages, memorizing vocabulary every single day..."

"Yang Xingwu..."

After listening to the three teachers, Ma Weimin exchanged a few more polite remarks with them before finally letting them leave.

He sat in his chair in deep thought for a moment, then picked up the telephone beside him and dialed a number.

"Hello, Teacher Li? Yes, it's me. I'm calling to bring you some good news today. Our province..."

"Good, good, good! Excellent, truly excellent!"

"This is only what I should do. Over the past couple of years, our province's college entrance examination results haven't had any standout highlights, but having such a student this year can finally be considered saving face for us!"

"This isn't just saving face, this is bringing us massive glory!"

After exchanging a few pleasantries, the two hung up their phones.

On the other end, Li Fuhua hung up, pondered for a moment, and picked up his telephone.

"Hello? Xiao Zhang, congratulations!"

"Teacher Li, what is there to congratulate me for?"

"I just received news from the examination center. A science top scorer has come out of your district!"

"That is indeed a joyous occasion, but surely this wouldn't warrant a personal call from you, would it?"

"Haha, I knew I couldn't keep it from you. He is the national science top scorer, achieving a perfect score in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology, with a total college entrance exam score of 667. The official rank list will be published tomorrow! I'm congratulating you in advance!"

"Really?"

"Of course!"

"That's fantastic! Tomorrow I'll go take a look at this student. Would Teacher Li like to come along?"

"What's the rush? In a couple of days, when the admission notices arrive in the province, I'll bring the notice and we can go deliver it together, and incidentally meet this top scorer!"

"Alright, alright, alright! We'll do as Teacher Li says!"

Zhang Zhiying concluded his arrangements with Teacher Li before finally hanging up the phone.

He hadn't been this excited upon learning that his jurisdiction had produced a provincial science top scorer, but upon hearing that it was a national top scorer, he simply couldn't sit still any longer.

One had to realize that since the resumption of the college entrance examinations, there had only been a dozen or so such individuals in total. He never expected such a massive windfall to land squarely in his lap. How could anyone not be ecstatic?

Zhang Zhiying revelled in his joy alone in his office for a long while before calling someone in to have Yang Xingwu's dossier faxed over; he intended to inspect the student's background.

At three o'clock in the afternoon, Yang Xingwu's file arrived.

Zhang Zhiying took the dossier, greeted the person who brought it, and sat down to read through it.

"Old Wang, take a seat first. Let me look over this file!"

"No worries, go ahead. To be honest, even now I still feel like I'm dreaming. I never imagined Sanchuan would produce a national science top scorer. Good thing we didn't let the administrative division upgrade a few years ago, otherwise this wouldn't have anything to do with us!"

Zhang Zhiying picked up the faxed pages and began reading. Hearing this remark, his mood instantly brightened.

"You said it! If Sanchuan knew about this outcome, they'd probably be furious enough to die! But since this person still belongs to us, we have to be generous. Think about it, what should we reward this top scorer with?"

"A bicycle? No, if Sanchuan finds out about that, who knows how they'll mock us? How about we send some Luoyang local specialties instead? A motorcycle would be pretty good. What do you think?"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Zhiying was left utterly speechless.

"Why don't you just suggest gifting a tractor?"

"Really? Or are you joking?"

"Weren't you the one joking first? A motorcycle costs several thousand yuan, whereas the provincial top scorer only gets a cash reward of five hundred yuan. Doubling that for a national top scorer is already the absolute limit. What on earth are you thinking? That would wipe out more than half of a ten-thousand-yuan household's savings in one go!"

"Tsk, there are at least a thousand ten-thousand-yuan households nationwide, but there are only 16 national top scorers including this year! Can you compare the two?"

"Come on, why do you keep bringing up money? We need to give the top scorer something useful!

Isn't he going to university soon? Let's reward him with a few Hero fountain pens, and maybe a wristwatch. How fitting is that, and it preserves some dignity for the province!"