Point, score!

Kiddo#1 is at the end of the first term, and he says he’s getting a hundred in calculus. Awesome, right?

He says, “I got a 92 on one of my tests, though, so I wasn’t sure.”

I think there were three tests, with two perfect scores and the one 92 (“What happened to those other eight points, son?”) plus homework.

Apparently they can do extra credit, too, and sometimes if the teacher is impressed with an answer, she’ll say, “Good job, five points,” and add it to their class total. When he tallied up his point total, he’d achieved 399 out of 400.

Now most of us would say, “Okay, that’s good enough.” Kiddo#1, with his particular drive for perfection, began looking for a way to find that last elusive point.

Searching.

Hunting.

With only a few days until the end of the term, Kiddo#1 sat in calculus class, wondering if he’d ever find that last point, when the teacher gave an example of a specific kind of equation, then said, “But we won’t work on that because there’s no way you guys can solve it.”

Kiddo#1 put up his hand. “Mrs. Smith? I solved it.”

She took a look. Indeed, he had. He said, “Five points?”

She said, “No.”

Kiddo#1 reports that the class erupted into a full-blown insurrection at that point and it took the teacher about three minutes to calm everyone down.

When the dust settled, Kiddo#1 said, in his best used-car-salesman voice, “How about one point?”

She laughed and said, “Sure, fine, whatever. You can have one point.”

And that’s how Kiddo#1 achieved a perfect score in calculus.