The Quest for High School Mathletic Glory

Chapter 5: The fiscal pressure cooker

Even though, globally speaking, the AP French group project ended up going more or less in compartments, contrary to her initial wish, everyone was relieved that it was over, especially since they were going first, thinking they benefit from the advantage it gives them (at least to Shane's eyes). That said, for every junior, the group project is inconsequential compared to the ACT taken scarcely ten days ago.

"Thank God that it's over; Gen was so obsessed with the financial details of practicing the profession that I fell sick! If you could please excuse me..." Shane expresses himself on the way to the bathroom.

"The ACT sent us a notice that our results are released!" Gen shouts.

Relax; no matter what score I have, it's not going to stop me. That said, it will determine my range of possibilities. For several weeks I refrained from talking about it to anyone, since I preferred to focus on the Square Root of the Answer. Nevertheless, since the SRA made me very trendy in class, I will find it impossible to hide my score on the ACT. In fact, anyone that seriously considers college attendance and whose friends will be equally serious about it will be way too tempted to talk about it. So, I may as well be as direct as Marcia... speaking of her, here she comes! She thinks, fingers crossed, while a great many students will consult, over mobile, the results obtained on the ACT administered for free with writing. Since there are a lot of students that will check on their scores simultaneously, it will be a little slow.

"Thirty-five!" Marcia exclaims, jubilant about this result which, for some, takes some time to arrive.

"I will be honest, the writing score won't be as important as the composite score, but how much did you get?" Gen asks Marcia.

"Eleven. And you?"

"Thirty-four. I must say that we started out from a very high spot, I have no regrets, we henceforth have two anchor points to start the following year on the right footing. I say that pending the results of the finals and the AP Exams, however. You remember that at the beginning of the winter, when we said that, if there was anyone for whom the Ivy League was realistic, it was us? By now it's more realistic than ever! Ten in writing for me" Gen explains herself.

Just because I can apply everywhere I wish to do so without complications does not mean that I can make this choice without any complication. Now I can actually say that I am spoiled for choice, she thinks while Cory was texting her:

"My father wants to see you after class"

His father only met me once, I am wondering why he wants to meet me now... he was full of admiration last time, but with the national final that's fast approaching, and, on top of that, the high tax season at church, the deal has changed, in which case I must effectively spend all week-end at church to file tax returns for low-income families! she muses while attempting to calculate Jacobians of two and three variables in her head.

Once at Cory's home, where she continues to do all kinds of homework, such as the one on electoral campaign finance, which surprised her by the speed at which she finished it, his father announces dinner time to her, to which she responds:

"This problem makes me hungry!" 

"What kind of problem in a problem set makes you hungry like this?" Cory's father asks while the rest of her family settles in.

"A point charge Q is found at the bottom of a slice of cake with an angle of pi over four. What's the electric flux of the slice of cake?"

"I give up" Cory's father then announces.

"The flux-divergence theorem tells me that the flux integral, or f point dn, is equal to the integral of the divergence over the volume. Coulomb's law also tells me that the f whose flux I want is in spherical coordinates, hence f is equal to Q over four pi epsilon-zero r squared. Yet a slice of cake would usually be a cylindrical problem" Gen explains her solution.