Power and Wealth

Chapter 8 – Copying other people’s answers

Administrative Aptitude Test is also known as AAT in short.

This was a test to evaluate the candidate’s potential abilities. There is a series of logic questions included in it. This test is different from IQ test and does not test the candidate’s knowledge. This test can determine the potential of the candidate’s abilities and suitability of being a Civil Servant. The candidate’s potential is built up over the years through their experiences and education.

The test was a closed book test, and there were about 135 multiple choice questions.

Morning, from 9 am to 11 am. The duration of the test was 2 hours.

Room 026. The examiner had read out the rules and the things to note before the start of the test. The test papers and answer sheets were given out to the candidates. Dong Xuebing touched the question booklet and prayed in his heart. Please let this test be an easy one……

Dong Xuebing looked down at the questions and start to answer.

First question. Eh? I have done a similar problem from one of the reference books. Easy.

Second question. Huh? This question is also easy. It is similar to one of the questions from the Jiangnan Civil Servant test 3 years ago.

Third question. After thinking for about 10 seconds, Dong Xuebing shaded C on his answer sheet. This was another easy question.

Fourth question. Dong Xuebing chose B. Although he was not very confident, it should be the right answer.

The first 4 questions were not difficult, and Dong Xuebing felt more confident. He thought that this test was not as difficult as he expected. He carried on answering the questions. But from the sixth question, the difficulty of the test increases. Dong Xuebing could not answer question 6 to 10. He could only guess the answers. When he reaches question 33 to 47, he was not even confident of guessing the answers.

This was a dangerous sign.

Dong Xuebing became more anxious as he tried answering the remaining questions.

The test was too hard. It was more complicated than last year’s papers.

The math questions were not very difficult, as Dong Xuebing had just graduated and he could still remember what he had learned. He was able to answer almost all the calculation questions. He was confident of getting most of these questions right. Language questions should also not be a problem. He should get most of it right. But the logic and general knowledge questions were too difficult. Dong Xuebing would be jumping with joy if he could get half of his answers right. As for the questions about data analysis, he was sure that he did not get a single answer right.

Shit. That’s it. He had flunked the test.

Dong Xuebing was cursing and swearing the person who had set these questions in his heart.

20 minutes passed.

40 minutes passed.

There was still 15 minutes left on the clock. Many candidates had put down their pencils. Some were in a daze staring at the ceiling. Some were scratching their head, and some were looking depressed. Everyone in the room has different expressions, but one thing in common, all of them does not seems to be confident of passing.

Dong Xuebing felt that he should not wait any longer. If not, he would not pass this test along with most of the candidates.

He took out his 2B pencil and start to mark out the questions that he was not confident and those he does not know the answers. He counted, and there were 45 questions. As for the remaining questions, he was 70% sure that he got those correct.

“Eh? What are you writing?” The middle-aged examiner walked over to Dong Xuebing.

Dong Xuebing looked at his watch and took a deep breath. Let’s start!

Looking at the answer sheet with all the markings, the examiner frowned and said: “You are not supposed to write on the answer sheet. The machine will not be able to detect your answers. Hurry and erase them.”

Dong Xuebing did not reply and suddenly stood up from his chair. The examiner and the rest of the candidates were shocked. He immediately grabbed his answer sheet and push the examiner aside. He ran as fast as he could out of the room.

“WTF? What is he doing?”

“Who knows? Maybe he became crazy.”

“Stop! You are still in the middle of your test!”

Everyone was shocked. They could not comprehend why that person suddenly run out of the room. Was he giving up on this test?

One of the examiners remained in room 026 to maintain order, and the other ran out to the corridor shouting. “Old Li, Old Zhang, help me catch that man. He is still holding on to the answer sheet. Don’t let him disturb the rest of the candidates.”

Two examiners who were walking along the corridor were stunned. They have never encountered such a situation before.

As the examiner was shouting, Dong Xuebing had entered the third classroom. He kicked the door opened. Everyone in the room was staring at him in shock. Dong Xuebing did not say a thing, and he kicked a desk in front of him aside. He ran over to Xiao Dong and snatched his answer sheet. Xiao Dong was too shocked to say a thing. He was rooted in his seat.

Xiao Dong stuttered: “What are you doing?” He could not believe what he was seeing. Never in his wildest dreams, he had expected Dong Xuebing to “copy” his answers so openly.

Dong Xuebing said: “I had warned you to be careful with your answers before the test.”

The examiners in this room were all females and were quite young. Both of them did not dare to stop Dong Xuebing after they saw him kicking open the door and snatching one candidate’s answer sheet. They were rooted to the ground and shouted: “Which room are you from? What are you doing? Put the answer sheet down!”

When Xiao Dong heard the examiners shouting, he reacted. He tried to snatch his answer sheet from Dong Xuebing: “Give it back to me.”

Although Dong Xuebing was not someone with good physical fitness, he was still much stronger than Xiao Dong. He dodged Xiao Dong’s attempt and ran out. He jumped out of an opened window along the corridor into the garden outside and started running towards the school’s empty sports field. While running, he was looking at both answer sheets in his hand. He compared his answers with Xiao Dong and memorized the answers to those questions he marked.

ABBCADDDBCADAB……

Dong Xuebing had already used up 30 seconds from the time he ran out of his room to get Xiao Dong’s answers. He still has 30 seconds left.

There was still enough time.

“Stop there!”

“Stop running!”

A few workers and securities had caught up with him and had surrounded him.

Dong Xuebing ignored them and continued to recite the answers. ABBCADDDBCADAB……

“Catch him!”

Dong Xuebing felt an impact on his back, and the next moment, he was pinned down on the ground.

An examiner shouted from the back: “What is he doing? Disqualified him!”

Another person said while panting: “Call the police!”

Xiao Dong, who had also caught up asked: “Are my results still valid? He is the one who snatched my answer sheets.”

Dong Xuebing who was pinned under the securities, ignored his pain and gritted his teeth to finish reading the last row of answers, before shouting: “Back!”

……

The surroundings were quiet.

This was room 026. Everyone was doing their test, and no one was saying a word.

There was only the sound of pens and pencils scratching on paper.

Dong Xuebing felt some giddiness, and the next moment, he saw the balding examiner standing in front of him looking at his answer sheet. “You are not supposed to write on the answer sheet. The machine will not be able to detect your answers. Hurry and erase them.”

Time had returned to one minute ago.

Dong Xuebing wiped his sweat with his heart still beating very fast: “Yes.”

The Examiner looked at him and then walked away.

Dong Xuebing dare not to waste any more time. He immediately picks up his pencils and starts shading the answers. I must not forget the answers. I must remember the answers……

ABBCADDDBCADAB……

Since a week ago, Dong Xuebing had started training his memory. The training was for him to cheat in the test. Dong Xuebing was shading the answers as fast as he could. The first 20 answers were easy to remember. Most people were able to temporary remember about 20 something alphabets. But it becomes harder as the number increases. Dong Xuebing tried his best, and he was able to write down slightly more than 30 answers. He knew he was unable to remember the rest of the answers and he used some tricks to help.

For example, AACBA, he will remember it as AAAAA.

If the answers are ABAD, he will remember it as ABCD.

2 minutes later, Dong Xuebing had finished writing down all the answers he copied from Xiao Dong.

If Xiao Dong really had almost scored the full marks for last year’s National exams, then his scores for this year’s AAT should not be too far away. There should be at least 90% of him getting the answers right. That’s enough. With the rest of the answers which Dong Xuebing was confident, he should be getting a high score for this test.

Phwee……

Cheating…… Success!