Power and Wealth

Chapter 8

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 potentialabilities. There is a series of logic questions included in it. This test isdifferent from IQ test and does not test the candidate’s knowledge. This test candetermine the potential of the candidate’s abilities and suitability of being aCivil Servant. The candidate’s potential is built up over the years throughtheir experiences and education.

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

Morning, from 9 am to11 am. The duration of the test was 2 hours.

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

Dong Xuebing looked down at the questions and start toanswer.

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 issimilar to one of the questions from the Jiangnan Civil Servant test 3 years ago.

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

Fourth question. Dong Xuebing chose B. Although he was notvery 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 ashe expected. He carried on answering the questions. But from the sixthquestion, the difficulty of the test increases. Dong Xuebing could not answerquestion 6 to 10. He could only guess the answers. When he reaches question 33to 47, he was not even confident of guessing the answers.

This was a dangerous sign.

Dong Xuebing became more anxious as he tried answering theremaining questions.

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

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

Shit. That’s it. Hehad flunked the test.

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

20 minutes passed.

40 minutes passed.

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

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

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

“Eh? What are you writing?” The middle-aged examiner walkedover 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, theexaminer 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 hischair. The examiner and the rest of the candidates were shocked. He immediatelygrabbed his answer sheet and push the examiner aside. He ran as fast as hecould 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. Theycould not comprehend why that person suddenly run out of the room. Was hegiving up on this test?

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

Two examiners who were walking along the corridor werestunned. They have never encountered such a situationbefore.

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

Xiao Dong stuttered: “What are you doing?” He could notbelieve 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 youranswers before the test.”

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

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

Although Dong Xuebing was not someone with good physicalfitness, he was still much stronger than Xiao Dong. He dodged Xiao Dong’sattempt and ran out. He jumped out of an opened window along the corridor intothe 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 comparedhis answers with Xiao Dong and memorized the answers to those questions hemarked.

ABBCADDDBCADAB......

Dong Xuebing had already used up 30 seconds from the time heran out of his room to get Xiao Dong’sanswers. 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 hadsurrounded him.

Dong Xuebing ignored them and continued to recite theanswers. ABBCADDDBCADAB......

“Catch him!”

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

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

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

Xiao Dong, who hadalso caught up asked: “Are my resultsstill valid? He is the one who snatched my answer sheets.”

Dong Xuebing who was pinned under the securities, ignoredhis 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 onpaper.

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

Time had returned to one minute ago.

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

The Examiner looked at him and then walked away.

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

ABBCADDDBCADAB......

Since a week ago, Dong Xuebing had started training hismemory. The training was for him to cheat in the test. Dong Xuebing was shadingthe 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. Butit becomes harder as the number increases. Dong Xuebing tried his best, and he was able to write down slightly morethan 30 answers. He knew he was unable to remember the rest of the answers andhe used some tricks to help.

For example, AACBA, hewill remember it as AAAAA.

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

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

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

Phwee......

Cheating...... Success!