Chapter 24: Looks Like We're Going to Have a Top Student from No. 4 Middle School This Year

Xu You found the entry point to solve the problem as soon as he saw the question.

"Based on the condition that a < |a|, it can be concluded that a is less than 0. Dividing the entire inequality by a changes the direction of the inequality and also achieves the purpose of reducing the power," Xu You thought rapidly in his mind.

With such treatment, the entire inequality not only removed the absolute value but also reduced to a quadratic inequality in one variable.

After that, it could be solved with high school knowledge.

In less than a minute, Xu You had calculated the answer to the first question.

And that was without entering a deep learning state, achieving such speed.

It wasn't for any other reason but that Xu You had done too many of such types of questions during the previous period.

In less than 20 minutes, Xu You had solved the first eight fill-in-the-blank questions.

Even though the difficulty of each question exceeded that of the key fill-in-the-blank questions in the college entrance examination.

But for the current Xu You, they were just basic question types.

The quick resolution of the fill-in-the-blank questions left Xu You with an hour of answering time.

Allowing Xu You ample time to tackle the three major questions that followed.

The first major question was about solving a triangle.

Compared to the college entrance examination's triangle solving, it also involved knowledge of vectors and basic inequalities.

But such difficulty was still too simple for Xu You.

In ten minutes, the first major question was easily handled.

The next two major questions were on functions and conic sections, respectively.

Their difficulty increased significantly compared to the first major question.

But within half an hour, Xu You had successfully solved them as well.

Looking at the time, there were still 20 minutes left.

By then, some students had already started to submit their papers.

But they hadn't finished; they knew they couldn't do it by sitting there, so it was better to submit early and go home.

Xu You wasn't in a hurry to submit his paper since there was still a second trial, and he couldn't leave anyway.

After a thorough check, Xu You submitted his paper on time.

After the first trial, the students couldn't help but complain.

"I spent so long on the first question. It looked like one inequality, but it was actually a system of three inequalities with absolute values."

"Why are there no multiple-choice questions in math competitions? There's not even a chance to guess!"

"80 minutes is simply not enough to finish the paper. I only wrote one and a half major questions when time was up."

Some students who were not well-prepared for the competition were overwhelmed by the first trial and gave up on the second exam.

Before the second trial even started, the number of students in the examination room was less than half of the first trial.

During this period, Xu You didn't interact with any other examinees.

There were no classmates that Xu You knew here, and he had nothing to complain about the first trial.

After all, the difficulty of these questions could only be considered normal.

As long as one prepared seriously, it was impossible to be clueless.

Instead of complaining, it was better to use these 20 minutes to rest well.

The real test was the second trial coming up.

Twenty minutes later, the second trial began.

The second trial had only four questions, but all were complex major questions.

It could be said that it was quite an achievement to solve even one question.

After scanning the four major questions, Xu You found that the difficulty had significantly increased.

The first question was about finding the maximum value of an algebraic expression.

Xu You carefully read the question, looking for an entry point.

Xu You didn't have a clear direction at first, just deriving some conditions from the question stem.

But at a critical step, Xu You hit a snag.

"Right, the arithmetic mean inequality!"

At that moment, an important inequality suddenly popped into Xu You's mind.

The arithmetic mean inequality, also known as the average inequality, is an important formula in mathematics.

In high school mathematics, only a small part of it is studied: the basic inequality.

But for Xu You, who was preparing for math competitions, it was natural to be familiar with such important knowledge.

"Using the property Hn ≤ Gn ≤ An ≤ Qn to transform, the maximum value of this algebraic expression can be derived!"

After a series of derivations, Xu You successfully solved the question using this key property.

...

Quickly, 150 minutes passed.

During this time, many students gave up struggling and chose to submit their largely blank papers.

If it were fill-in-the-blank questions, one could at least write a number if they didn't know the answer.

But for these major questions, without a clue, there was really no way to even guess.

At most

, one could write some related formulas, hoping the teacher grading the papers would give a few sympathy points.

In the moment before the bell rang, Xu You finally finished the last major question.

"Phew~ That was close, but I managed to finish."

This time, Xu You didn't even have time to check his work.

But having solved all four major questions of the second trial, Xu You was already quite satisfied.

Xu You believed his approaches were correct, only wondering if there were any mistakes in the process.

The two proctors, after collecting the papers, also whispered to each other.

"Competition questions are indeed different. Many students from provincial experimental schools, No. 1 Middle School, and No. 2 Middle School left a lot blank."

"Yeah, these questions are really not easy. I scored over 130 in my college entrance examination math, but I couldn't understand many of these questions."

They checked every exam paper for the name and exam number to see if any papers were missing.

"Huh?"

At that moment, they saw a particularly neat paper.

Not only was the handwriting beautiful and tidy, but the process for each question was also fully written out.

Although there were some erasure marks, it precisely showed the examinee's thought process while solving the questions.

"No. 4 Middle School... Xu You?"

Seeing the school name, both were somewhat surprised.

No. 4 Middle School was decent in Sheng City but far from being considered top-notch.

"Do these processes look correct to you?"

"Although I don't understand, it looks very impressive."

"I saw a boy answering very seriously earlier, he didn't look up the whole time. That kid looked quite charming when he was focusing on the questions, must have been him."

"Looking at this paper, the score shouldn't be low. If he really didn't know, who would waste two and a half hours sitting here writing nonsense?"

"That's true, looks like No. 4 Middle School is going to have a top student this year."

This time, Xu You didn't have a friend like Hu Shucheng waiting outside to discuss the answers with him.

After casually eating outside, Xu You didn't go home but returned to school.

Although he had taken a day off, there were still classes in the afternoon that he couldn't miss.

Now, Xu You was full of energy every day.

Even after a morning of intense answering, Xu You still felt in good shape after resting for a while.

"Xu You, how did the exam go?"

Seeing Xu You return, Hu Shucheng hurried over to ask.

"I solved everything, but whether it's correct, I don't know."

Xu You felt quite good about himself, but until the results were out, he couldn't be sure how well he had done.

"As long as you've answered, based on what I know about you, it shouldn't be far off. Heh, you don't know, the students in the math competition cram class were all crying, Teacher Qin didn't even have a good lunch."

(End of Chapter)