It was exam time at Marc’s school. Every day, their teachers gave them loads of homework and told them the test was very important and that they ought to spare no effort to perform well in it. Everyone followed the teachers’ instructions and made preparations for it, except Marc. He just turned a deaf ear to it. He thought he would rather play football than study.

His mum and dad repeated the importance of revision for exams over and over again. They told him that he should be working hard preparing for the test. But the weather was sunny and he thought he had better things to do.

“Shall we go to the park?” he said to his friend Huck one afternoon. “It’s a nice day. We could play football and kick around.” Huck shook his head. “I’m supposed to review my lessons,” he said. “I’m going home to do some math.”

Marc was amazed. “You’d rather do math than play football?”

“Math is important. Besides, my mum says she will buy me a mountain bike if I do well in the math exam.”

“That’s crazy,” said Marc. Huck shrugged (耸肩) and replied, “Wait until I beat you in the test and you will watch me riding past on my mountain bike!”

“You won’t beat me,” said Marc.

“Oh yes, I will.”

“Oh no, you won’t! That will never happen. Just wait and see!”

For the first time ever, Marc wanted to perform well. He couldn’t bear it if his friend came top and he did badly. So when he got home, he opened his math book. But there was so much to do. All of a sudden, he felt like he’d forgotten everything he had learned that year! He didn’t know where to start. When his sister Lily came in, he was sitting expressionlessly by the desk, just staring out of the window.

“You don’t look happy, Marc. What’s wrong?” she said.

On the day of the exam, Marc went to school with great confidence.