Cara Preston, who had been standing there just to watch the drama unfold, couldn’t stay silent any longer. "How is that possible! There’s no way she could get a score that good. She must have cheated!"
Elise Langdon imdiately backed her up. "She definitely cheated!"
Shirley Forrest retorted coolly, "If you’re so capable, then go cheat off soone else’s paper and get the highest score in the class yourself!"
The expressions on Cara Preston and Elise Langdon’s faces instantly turned ugly.
Shirley Forrest stood up and asked, "Ms. Taylor, could you read out the scores for the whole class?"
Juliana Taylor nodded. "For this diagnostic test, the total possible score was seven hundred. First place is Vera Xavier with six hundred seventy-three. Second is Shane Caldwell with six hundred fifty-five. Third is Shirley Forrest with six hundred forty-one..."
Even though Juliana Taylor had already announced that Vera Xavier was first in the class, the shock of hearing the actual scores was far greater.
Juliana Taylor ignored their chattering. When she got to Cara Preston’s na, she said, "The student with the biggest drop in performance this ti was Cara Preston, who only scored a total of four hundred and ninety-one points!"
Cara Preston’s face went white in an instant. Juliana Taylor looked at her and said, "I don’t know why your score dropped so drastically this ti, but if you stay at this level, you can forget about getting into a decent university. Your score is barely enough for community college."
Cara Preston’s face flushed from white to beet-red, and her eyes started to burn.
Elise Langdon jumped to her defense. "There’s no way Cara scored that low! You must have made a mistake grading her test!"
She then added, "And another thing! Vera Xavier gets a zero on practically every test. There’s no way she scored that high. She either cheated, or you graded the papers wrong!"
"All tests at this school are graded collaboratively by the teachers from each class," Juliana Taylor said, her face hardening. "When I first saw the scores for Cara Preston and Vera Xavier, I also suspected a mistake. I pulled their exams and carefully compared the handwriting across all subjects. I confird the handwriting was consistent, so there was no grading error. You can see for yourselves when I hand the tests back."
Elise Langdon looked like she wanted to say more, but Cara Preston tugged on her sleeve.
Elise Langdon was seething, deciding to wait until the tests were handed back. ’If I find a single mistake,’ she thought, ’I’m going straight to Ms. Taylor.’
Juliana Taylor took out the Language Arts tests and called students up one by one to get them.
Cara Preston was one of the first to get her test back. Her expression soured even more as she saw all the red marks. She glanced at her essay—her strong suit—and saw she had only scored twenty-eight points!
For an average student, a twenty-eight would have been a great score. But for Cara Preston, an award-winning writer whose essays were often used as class exemplars, it was an all-ti low.
A bitter feeling churned in her stomach. Just then, Vera Xavier ca up to get her test, and Cara’s sharp eyes caught the score on her essay: a high thirty-eight.
She muttered under her breath, "How did Vera manage to get thirty-eight points on the essay?"
Elise Langdon imdiately overheard her. She shot to her feet and declared, "Ms. Taylor, I can’t speak for the other subjects, but Cara’s writing is famous throughout the entire school for being the best! How could she only get twenty-eight points? And what gives Vera Xavier the right to a high score of thirty-eight!"
Elise Langdon had repeatedly questioned her in class today, and Juliana Taylor’s patience was wearing thin...
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