I was a top student in America.

"Check all student IDs. We'll need to verify their identities to enter tomorrow. Don't wait until you get to the door to realize you forgot yours."

"For test centers located at the University of Chicago and other high schools, remember to check the transportation routes and commute times in advance, and don't be late."

"One more thing to remember: if you don't do well on paper A tomorrow, don't let it affect your mindset for paper B next week. You will have two chances, and you will get the highest score from both exams."

"If you encounter any emergency, don't try to do anything yourself; call me immediately."

On the afternoon before the AMC 12 exam, in the workshop classroom at Whitney Young High School, Green stood on the podium, loudly instructing the students who were surrounded by him.

There's a reason he's so worried.

The AMC consists of two versions, A and B, which are separated by only one week. Candidates can choose to take one or both, and the highest score will be recorded.

This seems like a double insurance, but if they fail with the A paper, it is very easy for these proud and arrogant competition students to have a mental breakdown when they take the B paper.

Moreover, the AMC 12 is the only stepping stone to the AIME (American Invitational Mathematics Competition), and the pressure of the real competition is far greater than that of regular mock exams, leaving no room for error.

Of course, there's probably no one else in the whole class who can remain as calm as a rock in an anxious atmosphere like Li Ao.

"You have it easy. The University of Chicago isn't far from your house; you can just ride a bike there."

Sam leaned over to look at Li Ao's exam information, then glanced at his own, and wailed with a bitter face, "I have to travel all the way from the North District, what's the difference between that and being exiled to the frontier?"

Li Ao casually suggested, "Why don't you just find a hotel near the University of Chicago tonight?"

"Forget it, I'm sensitive to new beds." Sam shook his head decisively. "At worst, I'll have my dad leave two hours early tomorrow and wade through the darkness. By the way—Ryan seems to be assigned to the University of Chicago testing center too."

Upon hearing this name, Li Ao almost burst out laughing.

Two weeks ago, Sam had vividly described Ryan's "Adventures in the South".

Ever since the state competition, this guy has been insisting that his mom take him on a field trip to the South District and Wyndham High School.

As expected, the mother and son, both white, had barely stepped onto the streets of the South Side when the mother's handbag was snatched by a biker gang.

In the end, Wyndham didn't get to see it, and Ryan got a good scolding and had his allowance suspended for a month.

After all this turmoil, he finally developed a psychological aversion to the South District and stopped watching Li Ao like a thief all the time. He honestly put his energy back into preparing for the exam, which can be considered a blessing in disguise.

Li Ao snapped out of his thoughts, looked up, and saw Mr. Green walking towards him.

Among a group of anxious students, Green's tense brows relaxed slightly only when he looked at Li Ao.

"How are you feeling?"

"It's alright." Li Ao's reply was as brief as ever.

"I feel relieved to hear that," Green teased in a low voice. "Several high schools in the North District are keeping an eye on your grades. If you perform well again tomorrow, their transfer offer will probably double."

"There's no use in worrying about it, save your energy." Li Ao said noncommittally.

Sam chimed in, "Exactly, Leo has to take care of his grandma, how could he just transfer to the North District like that?"

Having confirmed the ace player's condition, Green didn't linger and turned to comfort the other trainees.

Whitney Young has just been eliminated from the state tournament, and now he sees everyone as a ticking time bomb in need of psychological counseling.

……

The following morning, outside the University of Chicago exam hall, candidates who had arrived gradually gathered in twos and threes at the bottom of the steps.

The pre-exam atmosphere was so tense that even these science students, who usually couldn't utter a word for half a day, became chatterboxes.

"Hopefully this year's questions won't be as insane as last year's, otherwise the last five will be impossible to answer except by drawing lots."

Jimmy muttered with a gloomy expression.

Ryan adjusted his glasses and analyzed rationally, "Actually, AMC looks at the percentage rankings. It's just a matter of rising tides. The difficulty of the questions doesn't have that exaggerated impact on the advancement threshold."

Hearing this objective, data-driven argument did indeed ease the tension among those around them.

Sam stepped forward, looking mysterious:

"Hey, I got a guessing technique for exam questions from a senior student, wanna hear it?"

"Tell me quickly!"

Stop keeping me in suspense!

Sam lowered his voice: "When you encounter a question you absolutely don't know the answer to, just choose one of the two options that look the closest. Because the question setter will definitely create extremely similar incorrect options to the correct answer in order to add distractors."

"Statistically speaking, this move definitely has the advantage!"

Everyone listened in a daze, half believing and half doubting, and unanimously turned their gazes to Li Ao, who was quietly lost in thought to the side.

"Leo, do you think this plan is reliable?" Sam asked expectantly.

Everyone believes that chatting with the top student in the state before the exam can bring good luck, so Li Ao was surrounded by Whitney Young students as soon as he arrived this morning.

He appears to be detached and lost in thought, but in reality, he is silently working out a complex integral inequality in his mind.

Caught off guard by Sam's sudden mention, Li Ao quickly snapped out of his calculus-based train of thought and casually replied:

"If the question setter sets the correct answer as a single integer, and the remaining four are all complex fractions with similar lengths, wouldn't your expected probability simply reverse to zero?"

Sam's smug expression froze instantly, and he thoughtfully scratched his braid: "Uh, that makes sense..."

The group chatted idly until the exam bell rang sharply.

Li Ao slung his backpack over one shoulder and walked up the steps first: "Let's go, let's go in."

Students from the greater Chicago area flooded into the building.

The corridor echoed with hurried, chaotic footsteps and whispers, creating an inexplicable sense of impending doom.

Li Ao remained calm throughout, following the team through ID verification, receiving answer sheets, and registering for his seat.

After receiving the test booklet printed with "AMC12 A", he quickly flipped through the pages to confirm that everything was correct, then pulled out his pencil and started answering from the first question.

The questions that once required him to stop and think for half a day are now no obstacle in his eyes.

The moment your gaze sweeps over the question stem, the hidden structural framework is completely dismantled.

With the support of abstract thinking, complex algebraic symbols are no longer required for secondary translation by the brain, and are directly reflected into the most intuitive mathematical concepts.

The pencil moved swiftly across the scratch paper. Before long, he had moved on to the final, most challenging problem.

The problem is not long: Given three non-negative real numbers a, b, and c, satisfying a + b + c = 6 and a^2 + b^2 + c^2 = 14, find the maximum value of abc.

After calmly reading the question, Li Ao immediately had a clear solution in mind.

"Expand using Newton's constant."

"Simply reduce it to a cubic equation, and then use the discriminant to check the boundary."

He casually sketched a few key parameters on the draft paper, calculated the result, and then moved the pen tip to the answer sheet, steadily blacking out the target option.

After habitually checking the markings on the answer sheet and confirming that everything was correct, Li Ao looked up at the clock. This 75-minute life-or-death battle still had nearly half an hour left.

Since he had nothing better to do, he simply flipped the draft paper over and picked up his pen to continue working on the integral inequality he hadn't finished deriving before the exam.

With the A paper passed without any doubt, the B paper a week later had lost its meaning for him.

As for the upcoming AIME, given his current state, it's just a slightly more difficult workbook.

……