The Odd One Out

Chapter 7.1 - Intellectual Duels

A few weeks had passed. It was November 1st. The day of the results of the midterms.

Nobody got expelled, and the class also saw an increase in class points for the first time in months. They had also lost class points in October as there were no exams so the changes were solely based on behavior, meaning you could not gain class points.

The class rankings for November were as follows.

Class A | 1274 cp
Class B | 1219 cp
Class C | 823 cp
Class D | 189 cp

Chabashira-sensei announced the upcoming special exam after revealing the results of the midterms. The Paper Shuffle Exam which will take place in mid-December, the usual time for final term exams. It will replace the final term exams.

It is an academic special exams with pairs and will also be the final exam of the second semester.

The upcoming exams will be as easy as middle school exam and won't influence our grades. These tests will help determine the pairs for the special exam. For the special exam, there will be tests on 8 subjects with 50 questions per test.

In this exam, expulsions were part of the penalties and were irreversible, even with private points.

If the combined total of the pair is under 60 for an exam, then both students would be expelled.

If the cumulative score of the pair falls below a certain number, both student would be expelled, even if they scored above 60 in all tests. For example, in the last exam, that certain number was 700 points, which lead me to think that if I scored 100s on all eight subjects I would be more than safe from expulsion no matter how my partner did.

The students will be tasked with writing the special exam questions for another class, then that class will have to 'defend' against the 'attack'. The winner of the battle (the one with the highest score) will gain 50 class points from the loser. To ensure that no impossible quizzes are made the teachers will monitor the questions. If the quizzes aren't finished by the submission deadline, the schools template questions will be used instead.

A class simply needed to nominate the desired class and inform about it beforehand. If more than one class nominated to attack the same class, the school will call upon the class representatives for the drawing of lots.

The school will compare the overall grades on the finals between the two classes, and the class that wins will receive a total of 50 class points from the losing class.

In the case where the exam becomes a direct match between two classes then the wager will be temporarily set to 100 instead of 50. But if the total score is the same in the end, the result will be a tie and there won't be any change in the number of points.

After Chabashira-sensei concluded her explanation, the class began speculating about how the pairs will be determined. They had decided to hold a group meeting between certain members of the class, Kushida being one of those members. Horikita was also part of the group. I was obviously excluded, again.

That same night, Kushida came into my room to talk about her problems again. I decided to use this opportunity to ask her about the group meeting, which I knew was held that afternoon.

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The next day, Hirata explained the plan to the whole class, while Horikita stood next to him without saying a word. I knew that this was her plan, but she probably left it to Hirata to tell the class as he still had the class behind his back, unlike her.