Daily Life of the Post-80s Generation

Chapter 7 Test

Xu Ningyu didn’t like to move. He had gained a little weight, especially his cheeks were chubby, with a bit of baby fat, but he wasn’t a chubby boy. The aunt was exaggerating. Xu Ningyu was unhappy, but the aunt and grandma laughed even harder.

　　”Aunt, Xiaoyu doesn’t like to hear people say he’s fat.” Xu Xinning also smiled and helped to talk about her brother’s desire to go to school. “Xiaoyu wants to go to school and wants to ask aunt if he can skip a grade. He has read the first and second grade books several times and can write a lot of words.”

　　”Going to school so early, it’s so hard.” Grandma came over and pinched Xu Ningyu’s little hand, which was white, tender and chubby, and she was very fond of him.

　　The aunt thought it was good: “It’s a good thing for the child to want to study. Xiaoyu is smart and can’t be delayed. Other children go to junior classes at the age of eleven or twelve. It’s nothing for our Xiaoyu to skip a grade to go to school. It’s just that he really understands the books?”

　　The 1970s and 1980s were an era of advocating child prodigies, and many universities opened junior classes. Chen Xiuying felt that even if her nephew could not compare with those little geniuses, he could definitely surpass many of his peers. However, her nephew was not like other children who liked to show off. She was not sure whether he had learned well enough and whether he could skip a grade.

　　Xu Ningyu nodded confidently: “I have learned everything from my sister’s book. I can do all the questions at the back and I don’t need to go through it again. I want to skip a grade.”

　　”Okay! Mom, I will take Xiaoyu to the house to test him. You can go to the vegetable market to see if you can buy some vegetables.” The aunt immediately arranged.

　　Nowadays, most people don’t have refrigerators. Meat can’t be stored in hot weather. They buy meat and eat it on the same day. The family didn’t buy meat today. It was the first day for the nephew and niece to come to the house, so they had to have a good meal to entertain them.

　　”Okay.” Grandma responded, took a piece of blue cloth to wrap the money and meat coupons, picked up the vegetable basket and went out. The aunt excitedly carried Xu Ningyu into the house.

　　At that time, elementary schools were still five-year systems. The elementary school department at the mine asked teachers to teach a class from the first grade to the fifth grade, and then change to another class to teach from the beginning. This year, my aunt taught fourth-grade math, but she was very familiar with the math of the entire elementary school period, and there were math test papers saved at home. She put Xu Ningyu in front of the desk and sat him down, and then found a first-grade final math test for him to do.

　　The first question on this test paper was a fill-in-the-blank question. The question had a lot of words, and first-grade students didn’t know enough words, so the teacher needed to read the question. Xu Ningyu didn’t need to, so he picked up the pencil and filled it in directly. Chen Xiuying couldn’t help nodding when she saw it.

　　The first question was to write how many tens and ones there were in a number. There was no need to calculate, and the rest was not that difficult. With almost no pause, Xu Ningyu finished fifteen fill-in-the-blank questions, and then quickly wrote twenty oral arithmetic questions. Seeing that he wrote so smoothly, it should be no problem for a first-grade student, my aunt stopped him and said, “That’s it, come and change it.” She changed it for a second-grade test paper.

　　Xu Ningyu finished another whole page very quickly, and his aunt changed him to a third-grade test paper. But he felt that it was a bit exaggerated to continue doing it. He looked at the test paper and looked up at his aunt and said, “I just learned to the third grade, and I won’t do it later.”