Classroom of the Elite: The New Elite

Chapter 22

The quiz to decide the pairings was set to take place tomorrow, so Hirata and Horikita decided to use today's homeroom session to brief the class on the strategy they had come up with.

"Okay, everyone. We would like to discuss our strategy for tomorrow's quiz."

"Did you two figure out a way to get the pairings we want?"

"Yes, we did. Hirata, could you explain to everyone?"

"Yes. For this exam, students who get a high score on tomorrow's quiz will be paired with students who get a low grade. To be more precise, the student who comes in first will be paired with the one who comes in last, 2nd with 39th, and so on.

In order to avoid having pairs made up of low-scoring students, this is the strategy we'll adopt. The top ten students will try to score above an 85 on tomorrow's quiz while the bottom ten will submit a blank paper. Students ranked 11th through 20th will score below 80 points, and students ranked 21st though 30th will score one point. That way, all the pairings should be balanced."

Not a bad strategy assuming that's how pairings are chosen. At first, it was merely a hypothesis, but Kushida must've asked around and obtained more concrete information considering how confident Horikita and Hirata are in their plan.

As for our rankings, they would be based on the average of our grades in all of the exams we've completed so far this year, which puts me in the top group, Chiaki in the 11th-20th group, and Satsuki and Maya in the 21st-30th group. Looking at the bottom group, the best case for me would be if I get paired up with Sudou given his recent improvements.

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With a plan in mind, we took our seats in the classroom and waited for the quiz to start.

"Before we begin today's quiz, I have a quick announcement to make. You nominated Class C as your opponents, and there were no conflicts. Class C also nominated you unopposed, so our two classes will be going head-to-head."

This means that classes A and B nominated each other. It makes sense for Class A to want to put distance between themselves and their closest rivals, but I thought Honami would go for an "easier" target. Then again, beating Class A gives them the best chance to further close the gap between them. A high-risk, high-reward strategy.

"You all seem rather confident."

"That's right, sensei. We figured out how to beat this exam."

"Is that so? I do hope you'll take the quiz seriously, Ike."

"D-Didn't you say the quiz won't affect our grades? That means I'm free to fail."

"Sure, if you think you know how the pairs are chosen."

Chabashira-sensei was trying to play mind games, and I'm sure it would've worked if we were taking the quiz earlier in the school year. Now, however, the class was firmly behind Horikita's strategy and wouldn't falter so easily.

"All right. Begin."

We flipped our papers to reveal the contents of the quiz. To our surprise, the questions were ridiculously straightforward, to the point where I can't see anyone failing if they took it seriously. Was this to tempt us into doing well? The quiz won't affect our grades, so it seems pretty pointless. I answered all of the questions easily and submitted my paper. My partner would now be decided by the luck of the draw.

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We didn't have to wait long to find out the results of the quiz, as Chabashira-sensei informed us of the pairings the very next day.