After Serena spent the weekend reviewing with her friends, the week of the preliminary exams finally arrived. At half past eight in the morning, they met at the lobby of their dormitory.

"I'm so nervous, I don't think that I'm ready for this just yet" Gizel said.

"Ugh Gizel, stop that, your anxiety is contagious. I think I might start palpitating!" Milly replied.

Via and Serena couldn't help but chuckle as they looked at their two friends and then at each other.

"Come on guys, I for one, just can't wait to get this over with. Let's go." Via said decisively.

The girls nodded, and then like soldiers off to war, they marched towards the school.

Upon reaching the main building, they saw students hovering at the entrance trying to find their names at the bulletin board containing their room assignment for the exams. Not wanting to squeeze themselves like sardines with the other students, they waited until they were the last to look for their names.

While Serena was trying to find her name, she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Hey."

Serena was pleasantly surprised to hear that voice which she immediately recognized. She didn't know how much she missed him until she turned to look at him. It has just been a few days of not seeing each other, but it felt like years.

"Hey to you too. Why are you still here?" Serena smiled, seeing that Charlton was alone.

"I just wanted to see you and wish you good luck. I found your name earlier and saw that you were assigned in room 3. I did try to check if you were there already but didn't see you, so here I am." Charlton explained.

Serena's friends turned to look at them after finding their names and knew that the two needed some alone time. Anyway, the exam will start in five minutes, so they quickly said their goodbyes and wished each other luck.

"You have no idea how much I missed you these days." Charlton began as he hugged her and inhaled the floral scent of her hair.

"I missed you too. Just 4 days to go and we're done with the exams." Serena replied as she hugged him back.

After a few seconds they reluctantly let go of each other, aware that they were out in the open.

"I know you don't need it, but good luck." Charlton said as he smiled at her.

Serena grinned back saying "Thank you, and I wish you luck too. I know you'll need it." Then she laughed.

Charlton laughed along as he playfully smacked her lips with his own. "Just so you know, I am in the top 5 of my batch. I'm not that bad."

Serena nodded. She knew that he was also smart and capable. He was not second male lead in the novel for nothing. "Alright. Then, I'll see you on Friday?"

"This will be a very long week. But, yes, see you on Friday."

--

When Serena entered the room, there was only one vacant seat left, so it did not take her long to find hers.

As the first years have 7 core subjects, the exams were spread in such a way that on each day, 2 subjects were covered. For the first day, the subjects were History and Geography.

Supposedly, those two were the easiest because it's simply memorization. But to Serena, they were the most difficult since, in comparison to the world she came from, the realities in this world were a little different. Anyway, Serena was quite the responsible student before, though her results were only above average, she did manage to enter the best university in their country.

Thus, she believes that it will truly be a shame if she were to have worse results than these real young girls who did not even have formal schooling until now.

--

The examiner assigned to their room was Dennis Lindt who was also their teacher in Biology. He was a very strict man who always looked at his students with suspicious eyes.

The question paper for each subject was the same to all the first-year students regardless of their gender. The purpose is to correctly assess their knowledge and ability as in some rare cases, female students even excel more. Though the only female precedent to do so was Grace Astoria who managed to enter the top 10 of their batch. It may not sound much, but considering the circumstance, that was an achievement no one can scoff at.

Mr. Lindt who just entered the room walked to the front and stood on top of the platform. He brought out the questionnaire from his bag along with another set which, Serena assumed, was the answer sheet. Then he read out the instructions.

"The first exam for the day is Geography. In my hands are the questionnaire and the answer sheet where you need to place your answers on. Before we begin, let me remind you that any form of cheating will cause immediate disciplinary action or even worst, expulsion. Thus, I remind everyone to mind your own papers. You are given 3 hours to complete taking this exam. If you finish early, you may submit your work and leave the classroom quietly. At 1pm, you are asked to return to this classroom to take your exam in history for which you will also be given 3 hours. Are there any questions?"

"Sir, can we use the restroom in the middle of the exam?" a student asked.

"Yes, however, your pockets will be checked before and after coming back to the room. Anything else?"

No one spoke. Since there were no more questions, the test papers were distributed among students.

Serena came face to face with the questionnaire. She read through all the questions first before she started answering. Thankfully, the exam did not have a lot of tricky questions.

During her 20's in her previous life, she had a lot of half-baked job experience before she got married and settled on becoming the lazy semi-housewife, reading novels and just collecting rent for her parent's real estate business.

One can say that she's a jack of all trades, but master of none. She was once an elementary and high school teacher for 3 months, and yes, she was forced to resign during the school year because she was always late. Right after, she was hired as a college professor. Although she quite liked that job, she thought that there was another world out there aside from the academe. So, after 4 years, she moved on to another job working for the government involving trade negotiations for more than a year. Then she got tired of all the bureaucracy and the red tape where promotion became a subject for only those in power. She also had other jobs, but those were not even worth mentioning as she quit them very early not even lasting a month.

Anyway, going back, she knew that some of the teachers, like she once was, include tricky questions in the exam just so that not all students will get a perfect score because they think that the exam was too easy, which apparently was not when the results came out.

So, she personally thought that this exam was quite easy. The first part which had multiple choice and true or false questions were quite straight forward. The second part was enumeration, where she projected, she got 90% correct, and the last part was essay. When she finished, she felt that although she did not get everything correct, she will at least get a final score of more than 90%.

Serena rechecked her answers as she felt that it was too early to submit them. Mr. Lindt wrote that they have 1 and a half hour left on the board. She saw that a student stood up from his seat to submit his work. Feeling that she can't add anything on her paper anymore, she followed.

The exams continued that way for the next three days. When Thursday came, only the subject Economics was left. Serena can finally taste sweet freedom as she finished writing her essay. Of all the exams, she spent the most in this one. Perhaps because she had more idea on what to write about said subject because it was her major in college up to post graduate school.

Nevertheless, she was just glad that it was all over.

--

TBC