From child prodigy to chief scientist

After another half hour, Xu Xiao finished the remaining part of the second question and then focused all his efforts on the last question.

The third problem is an extremely difficult number theory problem. Although the problem statement only contains five elements, many key pieces of information are presented in a very subtle way.

To solve the problem, the conditions must be transformed in a very complex way.

Normally, Xu Xiao can't solve these kinds of problems completely; getting even a partial score is already quite good.

This time, Xu Xiao didn't expect to get all the points for the third question, but she still tried her best to get as many points as possible.

At this point, most of the students in the training room were still stuck on the second question, and only Tao Kewei and He Muzhou had solved the third question.

However, their situation wasn't much better than Xu Xiao's; they were both trying hard to find a solution to the problem.

"Let's try to construct it first, for example, using an idea similar to Dirichlet's theorem to find a solution modulo p..."

After trying repeatedly for almost an hour, Xu Xiao finally made some breakthroughs on this problem, and it can be considered that he has solved about half of the work.

However, given Xu Xiao's current abilities, he is basically unable to continue advancing the problem.

"Time is running out... Sigh, it seems my abilities can only go this far."

Although there was no hope of finishing the questions, Xu Xiao did not give up completely and continued to write some parts that might be related to scoring points.

This has always been one of Xu Xiao's strengths. In his previous life, when Xu Xiao was doing math and physics problems, he would often encounter problems he couldn't solve, and he would rely on this method to get as many points as possible.

At 12:30 pm, Ma Junfeng collected the papers on time.

After handing in the exam paper, Xu Xiao sighed softly.

In this exam, Xu Xiao still didn't do a perfect job on the questions.

However, he was satisfied that he had performed to his full potential and that his exam strategy was very appropriate.

This time allocation method allowed Xu Xiao to successfully maintain her focus until the very last moment of the exam.

Apart from the ten-minute break I deliberately took, I didn't lose focus at all during the entire exam period.

After lunch, the team members returned to their dormitory for a short rest, while Ma Junfeng had already started grading the test papers.

Just as he had sensed during the proctoring, the team members' overall performance was indeed quite good, much better than in the previous diagnostic test.

In the first few papers that were graded, each team member was able to get at least one point for a question, and their problem-solving approaches were much more mature than before.

"He Muzhou did quite well; he was able to solve the second question completely this time."

Perhaps in terms of progress, He Muzhou's progress is not as obvious as others, but after all, his starting point is higher, and the difficulty of making progress is also much greater.

However, He Muzhou still didn't get a single point on the third question.

Each question in the national finals is worth 21 points. Generally, there are 7 scoring points in each question, and you can get 3 points for each scoring point.

In the end, Ma Junfeng wrote down a score of 42 on He Muzhou's test paper.

Tao Kewei, who followed, clearly performed even better than He Muzhou.

In addition to completing the first two questions very well, Tao Kewei also partially solved the third question, earning a total of three points.

It's important to know that this question is quite difficult; in the national finals, probably no more than a hundred people would be able to get full marks.

Being able to answer the third question to this extent means you're at least qualified for a government-backed bank position.

"51 points, that's not bad."

Because Tao Kewei already had a good foundation when he first came to the provincial team, Ma Junfeng was not surprised by his performance.

At this moment, Ma Junfeng felt that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, Tao Kewei's score should be the highest in the team for this simulation exercise.

At that moment, Ma Junfeng turned to Xu Xiao's test paper.

"Xu Xiao... You actually dared to daydream during the exam. I'd like to see how well you did."

According to Ma Junfeng's expectations for Xu Xiao, it would be considered good if he could answer one and a half questions correctly this time.

Even if Xu Xiao achieves that score, he will have a good talk with Xu Xiao afterwards about how he got distracted during the exam.

With this in mind, Ma Junfeng began grading Xu Xiao's exam paper.

As expected, Xu Xiao completed the first question perfectly and successfully obtained the first 21 points.

However, this is considered a basic skill for him, since Xu Xiao already possessed this ability before the provincial team training camp even began.

However, Ma Junfeng's expression changed drastically when he saw Xu Xiao's process for the second question.

"Wow... even the second question was answered so well?"

This was indeed a result that Ma Junfeng had not expected. Although the difficulty of this question was not that exaggerated, it was still considered a medium-to-difficult question, and usually only the top students in the provincial team could solve it.

Although Xu Xiao's league performance is relatively good within the team, in a province with strong competition, Xu Xiao would at most be considered an ordinary provincial team player, and normally he would not have such ability.

Before Ma Junfeng could recover, Xu Xiao's performance on the third question stunned him once again.

It is evident that Xu Xiao had some problem-solving ideas for the third question, but these ideas were not enough to allow him to solve the question completely.

Even so, Ma Junfeng could tell at a glance that Xu Xiao's approach was absolutely spot on.

"He answered all four points correctly... This kid is really something."

Based on this calculation, Xu Xiao's score is 3 points higher than Tao Kewei's.

After grading the papers, Ma Junfeng's feelings were somewhat complicated.

He originally wanted to talk to Xu Xiao about his distraction during the exam, but judging from Xu Xiao's score, Ma Junfeng really couldn't be too harsh on Xu Xiao anymore.

For someone of Xu Xiao's age, taking an exam for four and a half hours straight is indeed too strenuous.

If taking a short break during the exam would be more suitable for Xu Xiao's individual circumstances, then Ma Junfeng really doesn't need to overcorrect Xu Xiao.

"Never mind... let the child be."

The qualities that Xu Xiao has demonstrated go beyond those of a top student; it would not be an exaggeration to describe him as a child prodigy.

Under such circumstances, deliberately imposing various restrictions on Xu Xiaoqiang would only have the opposite effect.

During the afternoon training session, Ma Junfeng took all of everyone's test papers.

"The results of this morning's simulation are out. Let me read them now."