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懷玉看了又看，不敢相信真的全班最高分。

懷玉整理好實驗表格後不久，有一天走進心理學教室，看到桌椅排過了，

她面露驚訝，知道今天要做期末考前的模擬考試了，

老師笑笑地跟她說：大家都是這種表情……。

過幾天，老師把學生一個個叫進辦公室，發考卷。

上次就是這樣，進去後，老師問懷玉：

「你覺得會考幾分？」「你認為失分最多的是哪個部分？」

之後再公布成績和做檢討……。

老師的名字和妹妹英文名字的叫法一樣：

老師是Andry，

妹妹是Andri，她自己取的，

兩者有相同的簡稱，發音如「Andi」（Andy）。

一開始，妹妹不習慣直接叫老師名字，何況老師的名字跟她一樣，

後來老師說，真的直接叫他Andy就可以，不用加任何稱謂。，

Andy拿著考卷說：

「你一定不相信我要告訴你的，不過我還是要跟你說，你得了全班最高分。」

妹妹自己不敢相信，

不過，她也告訴Andy，

上次沒考好，這次考前的確多花了時間準備，包括做實驗整理……。

最後一題問答，Andy給了兩張多的空白卷，妹妹只寫了一張多，

她自己覺得寫太少，拿不到高分，

但這題，全班只有她拿到滿分——12分；

Andy說雖然寫得短，但重點都寫到了。

全班只有懷玉一個不是英國人，她要用外國語去答題，

她埋頭苦寫，怕時間不夠，

但Andy說，妹妹的字跡是全班最工整的。

Andy說，起初，他很擔心懷玉跟不上，

但經過一段時間，他看到了懷玉的進步，

他很高興她拿到高分。

還說

「你應該以自己為榮」！

拿著考卷回到班上，同學知道妹妹的分數後，覺得不可思議，

還有同學說「對啊，就說亞洲人比我們聰明嘛！台灣人耶。」

那天回家之後，妹妹反覆看著考卷……，

而小黃貓什麼都不知道，依舊窩在她床上睡得死死的。

妹妹選擇學習她有興趣的科目，

同樣認真，但不像在台灣那樣有時間壓力。

我很高興她充分享受學習的樂趣和成就感。

雖然回來後還是要接受這個不合理的學習環境，

但這一年，絕對是值得的體驗。

The tutor Andy left us doing some assignment and called each student out to his office one by one. When it was my turn, I walked into the office and smiled. I am always smiling, not for actual reasons. He asked me to have a seat and asked me how I think I would get, I replied that I messed up with the first question because I didn’t even know what the question was asking about.

From the first page, I saw I only got 1 point out of 6. I started to think, “Oh, maybe it will happen again!” That was what I did last time, messing up on the first page and only got 65％, which made me very disappointed. Then, amazingly, as Andy turned over the pages again and again, I got full mark on most of the questions and only dropped 2 more marks.

Andy said, “You won’t believe what I’m telling you, but I still have to say that you got the highest mark in the whole class.” I was like, what? Then I replied, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on, come again?” “You got the highest mark in the class.” Now I knew it was true, “How could it happen? How could it be possible?” I said. “Well, it just happened right in front of you!” he said, smiling.

“You know, I studied very hard before this, and I even made a two-page chart of all the experiments we have learnt, dividing them into aims, processes, findings, and conclusions. I thought you were going to give us question about Hodge and Tizard. I prepared for it, and luckily I was right. As the former exam taught me, I had to remember all the statistics, that was why I made the chart. I wanted to print it out, but it was too big, it didn’t work. And I was very nervous because I didn’t have the chart with me on that day.”

“But it seemed to work on the exam!”

I started to ask Andy about the wrong answers and correct them. That was about pilot study, research method, and behavioural categories. He told me to use a tally chart. And he said that my answer for pilot study was alright, but I needed to apply it into the exam question.

On one of the question, we had to outline, describe, and evaluate a research of privation. I said that I thought it was too short that I might get low mark on that. I only used 1 page and 3 lines but actually there were 2 pages and 14 lines of space. But Andy said, “Well, it was short. But you’ve got everything in it so it didn’t really matter if it was too short. And, you are the only student to get full mark on this question, 12 out of 12.”

“I was just writing and writing and didn’t think about anything, because I didn’t even know how much time left, and after that I was so tired.”

I asked Andy about other questions and he just told me that to lose 1 or 2 marks on that kind of questions was not a problem.

“Your hand writing is the easiest to realize in the class as well.” He added.

I could definitely understand this, because I didn’t use joint writing at all. I just wrote normally. (So you guys will be able to know what I wrote! That’s not really my aim, and I just didn’t use joint writing.)

“At the begining, I was quite worry about you, but you see, as time goes by, you do better. I’m very pleased to see you got this grade today, well done. And you should be proud of yourself as well.”

“Thank you, thank you very much.”

I left the office, murmuring, “My God.”

After returning to the classroom, mates on the same table asked me what I got. I hold my exam booklet and said, “85％.” I didn’t show any expression, I was sure, I didn’t. I said, “I just can’t believe it.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ!”

“You are an Asian, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Right, Asians are indeed cleverer than us. Well, Taiwanese.”

Philip said, “But your country has another name like Republic of China?”

“Yes, I have both on my passport.” They took my passport and pretended to check me and the photo, to see if they matched.

“High five!” Carla called me, I accepted it and thanked her.

This might be the best day at college I ever had since I came here. To be the top of the whole English class on Psychology. Still can’t believe it and I read the exam booklet again and again. There are really 39/46, 85％, on it, just next to my name.

Ginger cat is still sleeping as good as dead. He didn’t know what happened today.