Solid Geometry book Sold Geometry Lesson The solid geometry teacher was late and the class was getting unruly, paper planes and spitballs were flying around the room. Behind me two students played poker, and asked me to join in the action. No, but I'll show you a card trick, baffling them with "The Three Queens". "Do it again", they pleaded and as I made my false shuffle, a sudden silence— Mr. Reuper walked into the class, his frock of white hair and beady blue eyes quickly scanned the disshelved room of debris like a giant bald eagle hunting for its prey— suddenly he swooped the cards from my hands as though it were his catch for the day. Now like an angry lion, he roared: "One Big Demerit for playing cards in class!" as he flipped through the Atttendance Book to enter a black mark under my name. "But the cards are not mine— I was just—" Ignoring my pleas, the beast continued his attack: "I thought you were a fine student, but you are just a cardshark, a riverboat gambler! New York State Regents Exam is just a month away and if we don't cover all the theorems in the book you're not going to pass, that'll be your lesson!" But I had already learned my first lesson in humiliation and tried to redeem my honor. During that final month, I studied geometry like an infantry commander planning for battle by covering every inch of the hilly terrain, so I solved all the problems in my textbook until cubes cylinders spheres ellipsoids and conical sections became familiar friends as would Descartes, founder of analytical geometry who proclaimed that a perfect circle leads to a perfect God. Yes— practice makes perfect. And miraculously I made a perfect score in the Solid Geometry Exam that year— the only 100% Regents score I ever achieved.         — Peter Y. Chou             Mountain View, 8-2-1987