By: Andy Dong

Jacob Shen was a 10th grader at school. He was the president of the math club, the coding club, and the engineering club. He took Honors Trigonometry, AP Calculus BC, AP Macroeconomics, Honors Chemistry, World Geography, Honors English 11, International Relations, and AP Computer Science. He studied 7 hours a day and had 6 extracurricular activities. He was looking to major in applied mathematics and statistics at Harvard, and minor in computer science.

Kyle Wang was also in 10th grade at the same school and the president of the chess club, the robotics club, and the book club. He took precisely the same classes but took AP Microeconomics instead. He also studied hard and had many extracurricular activities. He was also looking to land a spot at Harvard.

Kyle was very nervous because the final for Honors Chemistry was being passed back. He waited nervously for the teacher to call his name. He heard, “Collins! Smith! Jones! Zhou! Wang!” Kyle flew out of his chair and came up to the front desk. He almost tore the paper out of his teacher’s hands and stared at it. No, No, NO! I

When Kyle got home, he went to his room, put his 10-pound backpack down, took out the rest of his math homework, and went to his mom with the chemistry test. His mom put down the laundry she had been folding and looked at the paper for a long time. Unexpectedly, she threw the paper at Kyle, screaming. “WHAT THE CHANDILIER! SO STUPID! ONLY 99.999%???” Kyle only flinched, he was used to this. He knew that it was his fault that he wrote down the date wrong and got 1/10th of a point off. His mom proceeded to yell at him, saying he was worthless and screaming about how his friend Jacob got 100% and not Kyle.

Kyle just went to his room to finish his trig homework.

The next day, Kyle walked to school, still fuming about the bad grade even though it was the hardest test of the year. As he walked into Calculus, he was overjoyed to find out they were doing a competition where students made teams and raced to answer a question. On the final game-deciding question between Kyle and Jacob, Kyle quickly buzzed off and shouted the answer. He was exhilarated. His team had won! However, his teacher said it was incorrect. Kyle then realized his stupid mistake and was ashamed when Jacob said the correct answer for the win. Kyle was shamed by his teammates and made fun of by his other classmates. He just wanted the day to be over.

The final test was being announced in Kyle’s next class, AP Trigonometry. When he heard his name, he went to receive his paper, and his jaw dropped when he saw the big, fat, B minus.

At that moment, Kyle realized he was awake in bed. He got up and realized he was dreaming. When he got to school, he found out he got 100% on all his finals and carried his team to victory in the Calculus showdown. That night, Kyle and his mom happily baked their favorite, gooey, double chocolate brownie cupcakes to celebrate finals being over.