The moment she did, her eyes narrowed. She’d expected to see a block of text or colorful graphics advertising a casino or a dating service, but saw nothing of the sort. Instead, Ivy read something that seemed like a macabre poem.
1092—three days to the date.
Twenty-seven minutes, why were you late?
Thirteen will fall, if their problem is unsolved,
Reduced to a constant, your death is involved.
Ivy shuddered. Spam, no doubt. Still, it was ominous and disturbing.
Your death is involved?
Ivy quickly deleted the email. So much for taking her mind off things.
“Hey, Dr.Reeves?”
“Hmm?”
Tristan slashed at a page with his red pen.
“The students’ grades are pretty bad.”
“How bad?”
“Not quite done yet, but... seventy-six average? Maybe lower?” Tristan raised an eyebrow and Ivy made a face.
“You sure?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. Of course Tristan was sure. Like her, math was what the TA did. What he knew.
Would she be pissed if someone asked her if she’d made a simple arithmetic mistake?
Well... no, probably not. But Tristan Coates was a year older than her, in his second year as a PhD student in the Applied Mathematics department while Ivy was a tenure-track professor, the youngest in Princeton’s long, esteemed history. She was also a Clay Research Fellow, a Sloan Research Fellow, a finalist for the Fields Medal,blah, blah, blah.
Tristan had something to prove.
Ivy didn’t.
“Sorry.”
Ivy pulled up the reports from the previous ORF 145 Fundamentals of Statistics class and did some quick calculations.
The historical mean for this particular test—one that didn’t actually count—was 86 percent. Standard deviation ±3 percent.
This year? 76 percent, which was a 4σdeviation. Like Tristan had said, pretty bad. If this was just a one-off, Ivy wouldn’t be too concerned.
But it wasn’t—it was a trend.
Ivy’s strategy when introducing a new topic was to give the students a test early into her teachings. Gage how well they were grasping the material.
Well, here was her answer.
“Hey, maybe this year the students are just—”
“No,” Ivy said sharply. “I’m not getting through to them.”
Ivy wasn’t one for external validation, but she wouldn’t have minded a comment from Tristan now. Something positive, reassuring. But Tristan just went back to marking, saying nothing.
