20 School Days (7)

The days quickly turned into weeks and the students at Maple-leaf Academy were about to begin finals. Final exams at Maple-leaf were done differently than they were at most schools. For most of the grades, the only difference was that instead of only being a part of your grade, if you passed the final exam you passed the class and if you failed it you did not.

The other large difference when it came to Maple-leaf's final exams was only relevant for the seniors. Instead of testing the students on general knowledge like Math and English, they had decided that the final year would be focused on preparing the students for their lives after Maple-leaf, whether it was to go on to college or to directly start working in some way or another.

At the beginning of the year, each student had to make a selection of what topic they would like to study independently and they were responsible for learning enough about it to pass the test created by an expert in the field at the end of the year.

This independent study was on top of the general education classes as they could not allow these VIP students to fall behind in any way in their common education.

The average student typically chose to study a field their family did business in so that learning about it would be easy or unnecessary and when they graduated they would be fully prepared to jump right in.

It was rare, but there were also students who chose to study something directly opposing what their family usually did so that they would be able to better understand the other side of the field they usually worked it.

Compared to other prestigious academies, this was only yet another thing that left them on the top of the field relatively unchallenged. Maple-leaf academy had started doing this soon after it was founded and had exclusive contract with many of the well reputed experts in each industry and other schools were only able to get people who were considered 2nd best at the very best.

Obviously, everyone who was able to would choose to have their student tested to the standard of the best in the field rather than whatever scraps Maple-leaf decided they did not want.

In the past, one luxury clothing business had even declined in popularity after Maple-leaf chose a lesser known brand over them to create the test and introductory information for their design course.

The way the school was designed also forced it's students to not develop or to break habits like procrastination because if they tried to put the work off until the end of the year, 9/10 students would fail the test and end up having to repeat the year.

If a student failed the test 2 years in a row, they were denied a third chance and were recommended to another academy to attempt to graduate from there.

As the tests were about to begin, the majority of the students were busy studying at the last minute or stressing over not understanding something and knowing they wouldn't be able to in time.

Directly opposite this, Aria and Aika were lying on Aria's bed in their dorm room, chatting with each other and watching movies. Aria was doing two separate tests, one on business and the other on finance. She had been prepared for the tests for years and had studied the material since she was 10. Even if she wasn't favored by the family, she was still the eldest daughter of the Song family and needed to have this knowledge later in life, so her teachers had been informed to make sure she learned as much as she could.

On the other hand, Aika had just transferred to the school a month ago and was exempt from the independent study portion of the exams so she had nothing to worry about either.

So, while the rest of the school was frantically trying to prepare for the most important tests of their academic careers so far, Aria and Aika continued to watch movies late into the night until they fell asleep well past midnight.

The following day, they arrived to class looking like zombies much like the rest of the students. Only, instead of having pushed themselves to the limit studying, the two girls had instead chosen to finish watching 'one more movie' several times until they fell asleep in the middle of one.

As the tests were passed out, a tense air filled the room. Soon, the last test was handed to the final student and the teacher slowly walked back to the front of the room and turned around.

"Begin."

Only 5 hours in to the test out of the provided 7, Aika stood up and walked to the front of the classroom with the gazes of the rest of the students following her. She turned in her test and waved at Aria before leaving the classroom to wait on the bench outside.

After another short 30 minutes, Aria walked out of the room smiling and the two girls rushed back to their dorm to keep watching movies for the rest of the day.