In the weeks to follow, Pablo seemed to have limited his interactions with the football team to what’s absolutely necessary. That is, in the weight room and if, for coursework, the teachers paired him with other footballers. However, the demand for tutoring has abated some in the weeks after the state-sponsored ACT date.
Speaking of the weight room, here players taking World History on the team ask him for help. And George, too, since it’s their first final.
“We need help on the World History final” Bart asks Pablo, and supplies him with a list of kids, mostly football players with a love interest or two, who have also expressed interest in getting help in that course.
“Why is it that you didn’t ask Audrey, me or even George or Lilina before? Maybe you feel like you had to prioritize English, math and science subjects…” Pablo asks them.
“Frankly, World History is of little or no real use” George answers him. “Not worth the effort to learn it; you will find that a lot of people take it because they don’t have a choice, thanks to state rules! Lilina and Pablo were willing to help you in World History if you needed it; you were there when you asked for extra credit help back in January!”
The mention of state rules gives both pause. And more specifically the TOPS University Diploma (which is a misnomer, since it’s really a college-prep curriculum), a track VA’s administration tended to push on a lot of people to pursue provided graduating with a 2.5 GPA or higher is realistic.
“I’m not like Lilina or Pablo; these two are study machines. I know school sucks, and I usually don’t do extra credit unless I have no choice!” the left linebacker retorts.
“There is one thing I won’t do: steal tests. However, you can ask around for past finals. I believe it would be better to study using past finals first before you go ask us to cheat!” Pablo warns his football teammates. He then texts his quiz bowl teammates for their plan to study for World History: “Lilina, try to get George to study for World History. Audrey, the basketball teams are yours to tutor”
Nadine might have had to cover Ethan’s needs in this area, as well as in math, but this leaves a big hole down the baseball team. Maybe I ought to ask Tanith; she knows about the baseball and softball teams’ needs in this area better than I would have, Pablo tells himself before he asks about the status of baseball players in this course. Oh wait! Nadine wasn’t picky about who to help at all! She might help baseball players if it happens that baseball players ask her for aid, but Audrey is, academically speaking, loyal to basketball.
“One more thing: don’t hesitate to bring whoever needs help that you might know! Doesn’t matter what extracurricular activities they take part in!” George urges his teammates.
“If you’re thinking about cheating, George, it’s going to be much more restrictive than on a regular test, since all sections take it at the same time. So what worked for juniors in Algebra II won’t work for finals. We can’t have a section take photos of the test and then have us make an artisanal answer key for us to hide in the bathrooms!” Pablo warns him again.
“I guess, we could smuggle in eye charts, have someone in the section carry a laser pen and then point at the relevant letters and numbers on an eye chart!” another weight room user, a theater actor, suggests to him.
My older brother once told me about how he cheated on AP Chemistry using laser pens, but he also told me that the teachers believed the method to be so unreliable they never took laser pen-based methods seriously, Pablo has flashbacks from his older brother’s only real consumption of cheating on tests. But why did he talk about the specifics of how he cheated to the whole family back then? If they want to keep cheating, an artisanal answer key in the bathroom would raise alarms if too many people catch wind of it, notwithstanding that it was last used months ago in a different course.
“If you want to go the eye chart and laser pen route, I hope that you have digits and not just letters on your artisanal eye charts…” Pablo comments on what failed his older brother so many years ago, but without mentioning him. “But I refuse to be the one with the laser pen!”
“Be prepared for people fighting tooth and nail to be seated next to you!” George warns the tight end.
“And the same holds true of anyone else you could ask for honest studying help!” He then turns to the theater actor. “If you want to cheat, it’s your problem! Are you sure you exhausted all your honest options? Homework security is often laxer than tests”
“I don’t think, personally, people care that much about World History, so if you think positioning in the classroom is important… well, I guess, I have no choice but to be seated in a front corner” Pablo then reads the leads he have on who could possibly want to study World History with him on his social media.
If you told me at the end of the football season that I would become one of those kids people plan their seating arrangements around in tests, I would never have believed it then. But now I must go to the test room early, and get seated accordingly, Pablo reflects on how his quiz bowl-playing days have changed his approach to test-taking.
The list of people who would want to study World History with him includes some people whom he feels are interested in studying with him only because of his football or quiz bowl position. More than out of any real interest for the subject matter, or the need for a certain grade in the course. Some of them don’t even do extracurriculars at all. However, all of them are in his section.
For this reason, he asks them when they are available to study for that course. Thursday after school seems to be the consensus and, for this purpose, he asks the teacher for past exams, in hopes that he could get some help to study, and potentially make these available to other students in the course.
But then Audrey texts her back, a little late: “Why are leaving me to study with the basketball teams?”
“Honey, we will spend a whole weekend together at the HSNCT when we’re not playing! But for finals, there are people who need us more than we need each other” Pablo texts her back. So far, I have Bart, a theater actor, and two girls who aren’t doing clubs or sports coming. George can always study with Lilina; Lilina always appeared to me as a “natural” when it comes to social studies.
“You’re right” Audrey then ruminates about the other basketball players taking World History. At least, with Heather and me around, the second string point and shooting guards, or should I say next season’s starters, take their studies seriously.
When Thursday comes, Pablo reads the past years’ finals and then starts looking for items that are recurring between school years before they can actually study for the test. Especially if they didn’t appear in quizzes and tests earlier this year. Hopefully someone’s parent is desperate enough to pay me for help; it would do wonders for my college budget!
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Topics such as 9/11, the Great Recession, the rise and decline of China, the expansion of the European Union and NATO, and so on were missing from earlier quizzes.
“OK, guys, beyond re-reading class notes, now is the time to ask questions about the material! I understand that the course is actually pretty shallow, but there will be a long free-response question on the final in all likelihood. The kind of thing that, you know, is more about the why events happen, as opposed to just the what, where and when” Pablo explains to his tutees.
“Yeah, that’s not going to be of much help since the long free-response question is worth only twenty percent and the multiple-choice questions are worth sixty percent!” the theater actor retorts.
“May as well smuggle in notes in a water bottle: it’s going to be hot and humid when the World History final rolls around!” one of the two girls suggests to the other three students.
“The problem with notes on water bottle labels is that you have a finite amount of space. If you feel like thirst will get the better of you, only put on the label what you struggle most to remember!” the other girl suggests.
“Enough! We’re not here to discuss cheating methods!” Pablo is about to burst into anger. “What is it that you struggle most?”
It seems like there’s a wide variety of struggle points, such as Antiquity for one of the two girls, and the start of Antiquity being the invention of writing, in the late stages of the copper age.
“Why is it that early Antiquity stages were named after metals?” the first girl asks.
“Antiquity is divided into copper, bronze and iron ages based on the materials used for tooling and weapons. And, with the increases in productivity that new materials meant for tooling, economies, as well as societies, became more complex and expansive, and settlements increased in size” Pablo explains to the first girl about the evolution of metallurgy.
And, of course, about which civilizations were preeminent by stages of Antiquity, along with approximate dates. Like Ancient Egypt being one of the most advanced Bronze Age civilizations, Sumerians in the early Bronze Age, Akkad later on...
But after the questions about Antiquity end, the others start asking their own questions about different concepts and eras.
“What about you make the eye chart?” the theater actor asks one of the girls, whom he knows is more visual arts-minded.
“Eye chart? What’s an eye chart?” the visual arts-minded girl asks.
“What’s going on here, do you need an eye chart for the play, or for something else altogether?” Pablo asks the two. “This starts sounding more like you guys want to cheat than studying for World History!”
“Cheating? Do you have any idea what favors our football opponents are given in class?” Bart asks the other attendees. “Our sports budgets are nowhere near, like, Livonia, Wossman or Pearl River. They hand out academic favors to athletes like candy!”
“Bart, what favors?” the theater actor asks him, oblivious to the football opponents’ academic actions.
“Don’t pretend that you don’t know! Having peer tutors on hand pales in comparison to what our opponents are doing in class! Granted, they get away with more when football is in season vs not, but our opponents’ players are often given an academic safety net that amounts to a cheating license in all but name!”
Bart then talks about stuff such as exclusive extra credit, giving test questions to athletes if they are missing tests because of games, or even outright grade alterations, the latter being mostly a last resort.
“Bart, stop! It’s your turn to ask questions about the material, not to dally around asking people to make eye charts to smuggle into the test room!” Pablo yells at him.
“All right. I’d say I had a hard time following modern Chinese history in class”
“For the rapid economic rise of China in the post-nine-eleven environment, and massive infrastructure investment, they both caught poor countries into debt traps and fell into debt traps themselves! And they find themselves on the losing end of post-pandemic trade wars!”
Pablo then explains what the Chinese debt traps were made of, especially in Africa and South Asia, before moving on to the trade wars and the tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
He then texts Audrey about his discomfort about tutoring kids who want nothing more than cheat on the final. “I can’t believe the people I help for World History would just want to cheat!” He then sighs, when he sees one of the two girls design an eye chart according to Bart’s specifications on her cell phone.
“Often people treat World History as a collection of dates and events with limited context at best” Audrey points out to him on mobile.
However, after they’re done designing a quick eye chart, the foursome resume studying for the test by revisiting what went wrong in past quizzes and tests. There’s only one reason left for me to tolerate Bart at this point: he’s going to start as left linebacker next season. For that, he needs to remain in compliance with no-pass, no-play, and getting caught cheating on the final will do him in.
“One last thing, Bart: If you want to start as left linebacker next season, cheating won’t be tolerated, no matter what our opponents are doing! They set a bad academic example we’d rather not follow!” Pablo sermons Bart, while the theater actor pays $50 to Pablo on behalf of the attendees before leaving the premises.
It’s tough. On the one hand, I know the education at VA is much better than I could have had at our core opponents, like Eunice, on the other, the academic pressures are crushing me! Bart starts to feel like the grass is greener on the other side of the town limits. And yet, if I transfer to, say, Eunice, I might not be able to start as left LB next season!
And, of course, Pablo sees Bart leave the scene, which leads him to face the harsh reality of getting straight As for two consecutive quarters. Freshman year, no one would have thought I would become a cheating supplier. I might be wondering if staying on the quiz bowl team after the HSNCT ends is worth it, especially when playing at the HSNCT means the whole town knowing that I am a smart guy. And hence me being a cheating supplier. At the same time, I am wondering how solid are our opponents’ cheating supply chains. VA not being very cliquey strengthens ours, yet I can’t help but think about, say, Aija in Livonia or Huiling in Pearl River. About the cheating suppliers, if any, of their respective schools’ footballers. Aija I know she’s a high achiever, strong enough to be a cheating supplier, but Huiling? I have no idea of her academic background! For what I know, she could be drawn to basketball because she’s weak academically; often Chinese athletes are either picked from a young age or are what the Chinese authorities deem “at-risk”.
Once this inner monologue ends, Pablo returns home and talks about the impact of playing quiz bowl on his social life to his parents.
“Since I started playing quiz bowl, I feel like people ask me to help them cheat left and right, and not just football players!” Pablo starts telling his parents. “I am not even sure I should keep playing quiz bowl! The pressure on me to supply others with cheating will become too great if I keep playing after the HSNCT!”
“Football players cheating off you is nothing new. You must realize that, if you were anywhere else in southwest Louisiana, people just wouldn’t make much, if any, effort in class! Much less football players!” Pablo’s mom harangues him.
“Nadine told me about how VA is much more competitive academically than almost any other school in the state! Typically, more competitive schools tend to be more prone to cheating!” Pablo retorts.
“Do you really think that giving up on quiz bowl after the HSNCT would make you feel less pressured to supply cheating to others?” Pablo’s dad asks him, in a patronizing tone.
“Considering that everyone in town expects quiz bowlers to adhere to a certain image, the question becomes: would the town’s academic expectations on me remain next year, even if I abandoned quiz bowl at the end of the HSNCT?” Pablo’s dad asks his parents. “You asked me to see the season through, and never in my life would I have imagined the price to pay for quiz bowl glory to include ethical issues!”