Genius Fundamentals
V* Boat = (V down + V up)/2
V water = (V down – V up)/2
*V stands for velocity.
Looking at the board, Lin Zhao Xi copied the formulas.
“V ship = …”
Before she finished copying the formula, the smooth script on the thin surface gave her a jolt.
A fifth-grader writing like that? Only if she was Pang Zhonghua’s disciple*.
*Pang Zhonghua is a well-known Chinese calligrapher.
She hurriedly switched to her left hand and copied the formulas written on the blackboard, one by one.
Lu Zhihao was right-handed, and his right elbow was very close to her left hand. They bumped into each other every few seconds, making writing uncomfortable for both.
However, chances are that because he was scolded by his mother, although Little Lu’s face had frustration written all over it, he tolerated it. Taking out his eraser, he wiped the mistake he made when he was bumped into, venting his anger.
Lin Zhao Xi had no choice, she tried to shrink in the corner to write.
Finally, she guessed he couldn’t bear the thought of being bumped into every few seconds, Little Lu snapped down his pen, his small black bean-like eyes squinched, as tough as when his mother slammed the book.
“Why the sudden change of hands, you’re so annoying!”
Because my handwriting is too pretty, Lin Zhao Xi silently thought.
But before she could find a good reason, she heard Lu Zhihao bossily say, “Let’s exchange seats next class. I’ll sit on the right!”
Lin Zhao Xi couldn’t refuse. She could only look at Little Lu’s white steamed bun face, almost not resisting the urge to squeeze his cheeks.
But they did not have the opportunity to exchange seats.
As soon as Mrs. Xu put down the chalk, she said, “Class, using the ten minute break between classes and the first five minutes of the next class, we’ll take an in-class quiz.”
The class grumbled. Lin Zhao Xi spun her pencil around. It had been a long time since she had taken a test, but she felt excited.
The exam papers were quickly handed out, thin and brittle A4 sheets. Mrs. Xu was well prepared, having printed them in advance.
There were ten practical questions on the paper, but they only had fifteen minutes. The time available to answer each question was only one and a half minutes, testing your thinking speed and calculation accuracy.
Lin Zhao Xi looked over each question.
Ten questions.
Three questions on the “Inclusion–exclusion principle.”
Three “cow pasture” questions.*
Three “flowing boat” questions.
*Example – There is a cow pasture. The grass in the pasture grows at a uniform rate every day. The pasture can feed 10 cows for 22 days or 16 cows for 10 days. If there are 25 cows, for how many days can it feed the cows?
There was also a final question related to flowing boats, which was sort of just taught. But it didn’t have much to do with what had just been taught, it went a little beyond, a sixth-grade question.
The only sound in the class was the rustling of pencils. Lin Zhao Xi pondered for a while, she was actually having trouble.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, but that she was too good at it.
After more than a decade of practicing for standard math exams, seeing these basic questions, she solved them by habit in her head. In other words, she had the more advanced tools, but how did she solve the questions with simpler elementary school formulas? She was probably not as good at that as Little Zhaoxi.
She began to try and think in reduced dimensionality, doing the questions very slowly. It took her seven or eight minutes before she had done three.
At that moment, the Olympiad teacher who had been walking around the classroom spoke up, “Be more careful with your questions, the summer camp selection examination is next week, and getting past the selection and into the camp means that you are one step closer to the Junior High Olympiad team championship!”
The “step” was a bit too big.
The junior high team refers to the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school. Altogether, there were more than 100,000 fifth and sixth-grade elementary school students in the city, and only five could really participate on behalf of Anning.
Before that, there was a heavy selection process.
Each school selected 10 people to participate in the “summer camp selection exam”. There were only 50 vacancies in the camp, and after the elimination, the last 5 were to represent the city of Anning in the provincial competition.
The 5 people’s scores added together was the team’s score.
But now, they hadn’t even passed the school selection, how could their teacher already be looking forward to them winning the provincial championship? It was too big of a pie. What’s more, the mathematical education in Anning City wasn’t really strong; it wasn’t even ranked in the province, so why was she suddenly aiming for the championship?
When that thought crossed her mind, the teacher spontaneously explained to them, “I say that because there’s an absolutely gifted student next door, with very high scores. We are determined to be in the final team, end up at the top of the tournament, and win the Jin Cup.”
As she spoke, she coincidentally passed by Lin Zhao Xi. Lin Zhao Xi’s heart almost lept out of the building, silently thinking of that name.
“Who is it, teacher?” Someone asked.
“Zhang Liang, some of you should know him.”
The tip of Lin Zhao Xi’s pencil stopped in its tracks, and she looked up at the Olympian teacher who was communicating with her students.
There really were people at the back going “ooh” and “he’s super awesome”…
Lin Zhao Xi’s heart was in turmoil.
If there wasn’t a big divergence between the two worlds and her memory was correct, then in September this year, Pei Zhi would nab all the gold medals in the championship.
And Zhang Liang?
Lin Zhao Xi remembered Zhang Liang. He could indeed claim to be clever, but how could he possibly overshadow Pei Zhi?
She got lost in her thoughts, until the Olympian teacher gave her a slap to the face and brought her to her senses, “Your score in the quiz will influence your final grade, so don’t think that every one of you can go next door for the selection, only ten of you will be able to compete for a spot.”
“Next door” referred to the experimental primary school a block away. Lin Zhao Xi poked her head with her pencil. She knew better than anyone how much Little Zhaoxi cared about the Jin Cup, and how much she wanted to get into the summer camp.
Little Zhaoxi was smart, and she studied day and night. She did well on every pop quiz and got high GPA’s. She had a good chance of representing the school in the summer camp selection for the Jin Cup at the experimental school. The Dean had always been proud of her, and many children in school knew about her and looked up to her.
Now…
Lin Zhao Xi glanced at Xiao Lu’s paper that had five answered questions, then looked at her own.
She held the pencil seriously, sobered up, and sighed, no longer thinking about Pei Zhi. She already skipped school and upset the dean, she really didn’t want to disappoint her again.
Genius Fundamentals
V* Boat = (V down + V up)/2
V water = (V down – V up)/2
*V stands for velocity.
Looking at the board, Lin Zhao Xi copied the formulas.
“V ship = …”
Before she finished copying the formula, the smooth script on the thin surface gave her a jolt.
A fifth-grader writing like that? Only if she was Pang Zhonghua’s disciple*.
*Pang Zhonghua is a well-known Chinese calligrapher.
She hurriedly switched to her left hand and copied the formulas written on the blackboard, one by one.
Lu Zhihao was right-handed, and his right elbow was very close to her left hand. They bumped into each other every few seconds, making writing uncomfortable for both.
However, chances are that because he was scolded by his mother, although Little Lu’s face had frustration written all over it, he tolerated it. Taking out his eraser, he wiped the mistake he made when he was bumped into, venting his anger.
Lin Zhao Xi had no choice, she tried to shrink in the corner to write.
Finally, she guessed he couldn’t bear the thought of being bumped into every few seconds, Little Lu snapped down his pen, his small black bean-like eyes squinched, as tough as when his mother slammed the book.
“Why the sudden change of hands, you’re so annoying!”
Because my handwriting is too pretty, Lin Zhao Xi silently thought.
But before she could find a good reason, she heard Lu Zhihao bossily say, “Let’s exchange seats next class. I’ll sit on the right!”
Lin Zhao Xi couldn’t refuse. She could only look at Little Lu’s white steamed bun face, almost not resisting the urge to squeeze his cheeks.
But they did not have the opportunity to exchange seats.
As soon as Mrs. Xu put down the chalk, she said, “Class, using the ten minute break between classes and the first five minutes of the next class, we’ll take an in-class quiz.”
The class grumbled. Lin Zhao Xi spun her pencil around. It had been a long time since she had taken a test, but she felt excited.
The exam papers were quickly handed out, thin and brittle A4 sheets. Mrs. Xu was well prepared, having printed them in advance.
There were ten practical questions on the paper, but they only had fifteen minutes. The time available to answer each question was only one and a half minutes, testing your thinking speed and calculation accuracy.
Lin Zhao Xi looked over each question.
Ten questions.
Three questions on the “Inclusion–exclusion principle.”
Three “cow pasture” questions.*
Three “flowing boat” questions.
*Example – There is a cow pasture. The grass in the pasture grows at a uniform rate every day. The pasture can feed 10 cows for 22 days or 16 cows for 10 days. If there are 25 cows, for how many days can it feed the cows?
There was also a final question related to flowing boats, which was sort of just taught. But it didn’t have much to do with what had just been taught, it went a little beyond, a sixth-grade question.
The only sound in the class was the rustling of pencils. Lin Zhao Xi pondered for a while, she was actually having trouble.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t do it, but that she was too good at it.
After more than a decade of practicing for standard math exams, seeing these basic questions, she solved them by habit in her head. In other words, she had the more advanced tools, but how did she solve the questions with simpler elementary school formulas? She was probably not as good at that as Little Zhaoxi.
She began to try and think in reduced dimensionality, doing the questions very slowly. It took her seven or eight minutes before she had done three.
At that moment, the Olympiad teacher who had been walking around the classroom spoke up, “Be more careful with your questions, the summer camp selection examination is next week, and getting past the selection and into the camp means that you are one step closer to the Junior High Olympiad team championship!”
The “step” was a bit too big.
The junior high team refers to the fifth and sixth grades of elementary school. Altogether, there were more than 100,000 fifth and sixth-grade elementary school students in the city, and only five could really participate on behalf of Anning.
Before that, there was a heavy selection process.
Each school selected 10 people to participate in the “summer camp selection exam”. There were only 50 vacancies in the camp, and after the elimination, the last 5 were to represent the city of Anning in the provincial competition.
The 5 people’s scores added together was the team’s score.
But now, they hadn’t even passed the school selection, how could their teacher already be looking forward to them winning the provincial championship? It was too big of a pie. What’s more, the mathematical education in Anning City wasn’t really strong; it wasn’t even ranked in the province, so why was she suddenly aiming for the championship?
When that thought crossed her mind, the teacher spontaneously explained to them, “I say that because there’s an absolutely gifted student next door, with very high scores. We are determined to be in the final team, end up at the top of the tournament, and win the Jin Cup.”
As she spoke, she coincidentally passed by Lin Zhao Xi. Lin Zhao Xi’s heart almost lept out of the building, silently thinking of that name.
“Who is it, teacher?” Someone asked.
“Zhang Liang, some of you should know him.”
The tip of Lin Zhao Xi’s pencil stopped in its tracks, and she looked up at the Olympian teacher who was communicating with her students.
There really were people at the back going “ooh” and “he’s super awesome”…
Lin Zhao Xi’s heart was in turmoil.
If there wasn’t a big divergence between the two worlds and her memory was correct, then in September this year, Pei Zhi would nab all the gold medals in the championship.
And Zhang Liang?
Lin Zhao Xi remembered Zhang Liang. He could indeed claim to be clever, but how could he possibly overshadow Pei Zhi?
She got lost in her thoughts, until the Olympian teacher gave her a slap to the face and brought her to her senses, “Your score in the quiz will influence your final grade, so don’t think that every one of you can go next door for the selection, only ten of you will be able to compete for a spot.”
“Next door” referred to the experimental primary school a block away. Lin Zhao Xi poked her head with her pencil. She knew better than anyone how much Little Zhaoxi cared about the Jin Cup, and how much she wanted to get into the summer camp.
Little Zhaoxi was smart, and she studied day and night. She did well on every pop quiz and got high GPA’s. She had a good chance of representing the school in the summer camp selection for the Jin Cup at the experimental school. The Dean had always been proud of her, and many children in school knew about her and looked up to her.
Now…
Lin Zhao Xi glanced at Xiao Lu’s paper that had five answered questions, then looked at her own.
She held the pencil seriously, sobered up, and sighed, no longer thinking about Pei Zhi. She already skipped school and upset the dean, she really didn’t want to disappoint her again.
