From child prodigy to chief scientist

Hearing Ma Junfeng say this, everyone looked pleasantly surprised.

They were used to the strict Ma Junfeng, so seeing him so gentle made them feel a little uncomfortable.

"Teacher Ma, I thought you were going to criticize us."

"Yes, I was prepared to be criticized, but you actually want to take us out to play."

Seeing everyone's reaction, Ma Junfeng said somewhat helplessly:

"What, do you really think of me as such a villain?"

Xu Xiao silently observed all of this, and couldn't help but shake her head and smile gently.

He was well aware that Ma Junfeng's strict demands on everyone were simply to help the team members improve quickly and adapt to the intensity of the national finals as soon as possible.

Putting aside his serious appearance, Ma Junfeng is actually a very good person.

Now that the national finals are over, he naturally has no need to criticize everyone anymore.

In the afternoon, Ma Junfeng led his team to Taiping Old Street, which was nearby.

People rarely have the opportunity to go out and have fun, so this is a rare chance to relax a bit.

Even He Muzhou temporarily put aside his frustration about failing the exam and enjoyed this long-awaited moment of relaxation.

Xu Xiao, on the other hand, didn't seem to be very interested in sightseeing. She just followed behind the group and didn't buy any of the street snacks.

Given his actual psychological age, it's indeed difficult for him to be interested in such things.

However, seeing that everyone was having so much fun, Xu Xiao didn't want to go back early on her own.

Since there's nothing much to do before the national finals results are out, why not take this time to rest?

Noticing that Xu Xiao seemed a bit out of place in the crowd, Ma Junfeng simply ignored the team members who were having a great time and went to Xu Xiao's side.

"Xu Xiao, you don't seem to be in the mood for fun?"

"Oh, it's nothing, Teacher Ma. I just don't really like shopping, but I'm in a pretty good mood."

Xu Xiao's mature-beyond-his-years demeanor left Ma Junfeng somewhat amused and exasperated.

Compared to those real high school students, Xu Xiao seemed to be the more mature one.

To be honest, Ma Junfeng doesn't really like wandering around here either. The reason he brought everyone here was just to let the team members relax.

After all, the training these past few days has been really tough, and once they get back, the students will have to get back into the intense high school life. They probably only have this half-day to go out and have some fun.

"Xu Xiao, how many of these six questions do you think you can answer correctly?"

After chatting with Xu Xiao for a while, Ma Junfeng decided to ask the question.

"I think I had no problem with the three questions on the first day, and I also finished the three questions on the second day. But I was a bit rushed and didn't have time to check them. I don't know if I did them correctly."

Upon hearing Xu Xiao's answer, Ma Junfeng couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

Although Xu Xiao's explanation was somewhat vague, at least none of the six questions truly stumped him.

Even if Xu Xiao's approach to some questions isn't necessarily correct, as long as he doesn't lose too many points, he still has a good chance of making it into the national team.

"You're quite something, kid."

"No, I feel like I didn't do very well today either. I got stuck on the fourth question, which has never happened during training."

Ma Junfeng chuckled softly upon hearing this, and then replied:

"Let me tell you something. According to many students, this year's questions were significantly more difficult than in previous years, especially the three questions on the second day; none of them were easy to solve."

"Really? No wonder I felt something was off back then too."

From this perspective, Xu Xiao's feeling was not a misperception; the distribution pattern of questions in this year's national finals was indeed different from that of previous years.

"No one expected that the question setter would set three challenging questions on the second day, which disrupted the mentality of many students who scored 280+ or ​​290+ in the league."

"However, I don't think this is a bad thing. There is no absolute standard for the difficulty of the national finals questions. Even if the questions are a bit difficult, it is still fair to everyone."

Xu Xiao also agreed that this made sense; if the questions were easy, the experience of answering them would indeed be better.

However, this will result in higher scores for everyone, and the feeling of good during the exam is just an illusion.

"Judging from this, the cutoff score for this year's CMO national tournament might be even lower than in previous years?"

Thinking about this, Xu Xiao felt increasingly that his chances of entering the national team were getting bigger and bigger.

…………

On the day after the national final exam, the organizers arranged a day of academic reports.

This is also a tradition of previous CMOs. In the future, many of these students will choose mathematics or mathematics-related majors after entering university, or even engage in mathematical research.

Participating in competitions is just a starting point for them; in comparison, the complexity of academic research is on a completely different level.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in the CMO, students were given the chance to listen to academic reports, which can be considered as giving them an early academic education.

The organizers invited Professor Yuan Jiyang from Yenching University to speak.

Yuan Jiyang is a top expert in algebra and geometry in China, and one of the most influential figures even in the mathematics department of Yenching University.

Before the academic report began, the coaching staff and players from each provincial team arrived at the lecture hall early, ready to listen to the report.

Besides them, there were other mathematics researchers who came from all over the world specifically to hear this report in person.

Xu Xiao also attached great importance to this academic report, and even if she didn't understand much of it, she would do her best to comprehend it.

When the scheduled start time for the report arrived, Yuan Jiyang appeared in the lecture hall on time.

"Dear colleagues in the mathematics community and dear students, hello, I am Yuan Jiyang."

As soon as he finished speaking, Yuan Jiyang immediately received enthusiastic applause from the entire audience.

Yuan Jiyang looked to be in his fifties. He had combed his hair for today's report and looked very energetic.

Today, Yuan Jiyang's report focuses on the study of the quaternary generalized Schur inequality.

This is also a research area that Yuan Jiyang is very good at. He has published more than ten papers in this field alone.

Watching Yuan Jiyang smoothly demonstrate on stage, even those students who didn't understand much actively took notes, wanting to study the content carefully later.

Xu Xiao was one of the few students who did not take notes. With his powerful memory, he could simply memorize the information directly.