When a cheating scandal is uncovered by the association behind the STIC tests,
a group of students is called to testify about their marvelous grades. The first one is Lynn,
the top student in her class and winner of lots of Math competitions. Her mother left a few years ago
after the divorce, and now it’s just her and her dad, who has a small teacher salary. Her
story begins when her dad tries to enroll her in a prestigious school, although she doesn’t
want to study there because the enrollment fee and the other expenses will cost them a lot of money,
and she doesn’t want to cause trouble for her dad like that. Lynn demonstrates she can do all
the math for the expenses in her head, and the principal is so impressed that she offers her
a scholarship, which Lynn happily accepts. Later while she’s taking photos for her ID,
she meets Grace, a friendly and rich girl who is more interested in becoming an actress than
studying and doesn’t mind Lynn being an awkward nerd. The two immediately hit it off and become
good friends. Grace’s grades have been passable until one day the school announces a new rule:
the general average must be around 3.2 . Desperate not to fail school and disappoint her parents,
Grace asks Lynn to be her tutor, who accepts after some hesitation. On the day of the exam,
Lynn tries to be encouraging by pointing out these are the exercises they’ve practiced,
but Grace is still completely lost. Lynn flies through her test, answering everything easily,
but she can’t stop worrying about Grace. If Grace fails, Lynn will lose the company of the first
friend she ever had. At that moment she decides to help her, so she writes the correct answers on an
eraser, takes off her shoe, and drops the eraser in it. Then she kicks the shoe back to Grace, who
sends her own shoe back. Unfortunately she kicks it too hard and it ends up in the middle of the
classroom, but thankfully Lynn quickly solves the problem by standing up and stepping on the shoe as
she goes to hand in her finished test. Grace uses the eraser and successfully passes the test with a
3.87 GPA. To celebrate, Grace invites Lynn to hang out at her pool, where they’re joined by Grace’s
boyfriend Pat, who is also rich. Grace tells him about their little trick during the test,
and Pat sees an opportunity: he offers Lynn a huge amount of money to help him and his friends
cheat on all their exams. At first Lynn says no, pointing out she doesn’t need it, but Pat then
reveals that even with a scholarship her father is still paying admin fees. When Lynn goes home,
she searches her father’s desk and finds the paperwork confirming Pat’s information: her
dad's paying lots of money with his small teacher salary, which makes Lynn cry. Later while she’s
practicing on the piano, she asks her dad why he sent her to the fancy school. Her father says he
wants her to have better opportunities and maybe even study abroad, ignoring Lynn when she says she
was happier in her previous school. After dad goes to bed, Lynn keeps practicing on the piano, and
she realizes her fingers make for great signaling while they play. The next day, Lynn accepts the
job and teaches the group how they’ll get their answers. Since the test is multiple choice,
she assigns each letter to a hand pattern, and the students just have to memorize which one is which.
This way they can also disguise their practicing as piano lessons, keeping the money legal and
giving them an alibi for the investigation later. From then on, the group begins cheating on every
exam, and the trick is a success. Lynn moves her hand on the desk, which looks completely innocent,
and the others only have to watch. Teachers don’t suspect anything, and everyone passes their exams
with great grades. The business soon expands and each day more and more students are willing
to pay for the answers. Lynn uses this money to help around the house and buys her father a nice
new shirt. Everyone may have passing grades now, but Lynn is still the best in her class, and the
second best is Bank, a real genius like her that doesn’t know anything about the cheating business.
Just like Lynn, he doesn’t have much money, he’s in this school thanks to a scholarship. His mother
has to pay for his admin fees with a shabby laundromat salary. His memory is outstanding,
as proven by the way he can quickly recite Pi, but he has no tolerance for cheating. Lynn and
Bank aren’t really friends, but the school sends them together to Math competitions and
they easily win them by working together, so they consider each other good acquaintances.
After winning first place in “Teen Genius”, they are called by the principal who informs them that
there is a scholarship abroad that they can apply for. However, there is only one slot,
meaning they’ll be rivals from now on. Bank feels very nervous under all this pressure, but when he
gets home and discovers his old mother is washing by hand because the machine broke, he still
prefers to help her rather than study. One day, Bank is approached by classmate Tong, who wants
to pay Bank for his help during the exam because the piano code is too hard for him. However, Bank
turns him down, not wanting dirty money. During the exam, Lynn continues to use her hand signals
as usual, but since Tong didn’t memorize them, he keeps trying to peep at Lynn’s paper. Suspecting
Tong would try to cheat, Bank is keeping an eye on him and notices his peeping. When he finishes his
own exam, Bank stands up and pretends to trip next to Lynn’s desk, showing her a note saying Tong is
trying to cheat, and Lynn pretends to be grateful about it. Then Bank hands in his test and tells
the teacher about Tong before leaving. However the teacher doesn’t care about the warning, because
the test is separated into set A and set B, so cheating is impossible. When Lynn and her paying
friends realize this, they panic and smoothly use hand gestures to indicate who has which set. Lynn
has set A, and she first does the hand gestures for that set so everyone on that team can hand
in their test. While that group is surrounding the teacher, Lynn exchanges her paper with Tong,
who has set B. Then she hurries to finish all the exercises and gestures the answers to the
B group. The time is running out and the teacher comes to collect the papers when they ignore him,
but luckily they manage to fill in the answers right before he reaches their desks.
After the test is over, everyone thinks they’re safe, but Lynn and Tong are suddenly called to the
principal’s office because Bank has told her about Tong. They tried to deny any cheating,
but when they check the papers, the principal discovers Lynn’s and Tong’s are mixed. Lynn’s
father is called for a special meeting and the principal announces that since this is only the
first time and she’s a good student, Lynn won’t be expelled, instead she’ll lose her scholarship.
Lynn calls the principal out, saying that getting admin fees out of her father when she’s supposed
to have a scholarship is also cheating. The school is using other people’s studies to make money,
just like her. Furious, the principal revokes her chance to apply for an international scholarship
at university level, so now Bank doesn’t have a rival any longer. However Bank feels terrible
because he feels like he got it unfairly. When they get home, Lynn’s dad scolds her for what she
did, showing how disappointed he is by refusing to wear the shirt she got him anymore. Meanwhile,
Grace goes to Pat’s home to have dinner with his parents. They think Pat has gotten better
at school thanks to Grace’s influence, and they want her to try for the STIC with Pat so they can
go to Boston University together, even promising to pay for everything. Desperate, Grace calls Lynn
and asks for her help. At first Lynn doesn’t want to risk her reputation again, but this time Grace
appeals to their friendship and promises a pay much larger than before. Lynn accepts,
but as she leaves the building reading all the test rules, she realizes there’s nothing she can
do to cheat the system. She begins writing a note with an apology, but at that moment, she hears a
man talking to someone in another country, and she notices all the clocks with different timezones
on the wall. This gives her the perfect idea. The next day, Lynn tells Grace and Pat about her plan:
they’re going to take advantage of timezones. Since the exam is the same all over the world,
she’ll take the test in Australia four hours earlier, then she can pass the answers back to
Thailand and sell them to whoever wants to take the test, now Grace and Pat’s part will be to
find more clients to pay for all the expenses. This way Lynn can also go to Boston University.
To get the answers out, though, Lynn will have to memorize them. She usually can memorize so much if
she has enough time, but since after finishing the test she’ll only have a few minutes left,
she’ll only be able to memorize half the test. The only person capable of memorizing the other
half would be Bank, but they know better than to ask him since he hates cheating. The night before
the scholarship test, Bank is on his scooter doing the laundromat’s clothing deliveries. When he gets
home, he’s cornered by two thugs that accuse him of having scratched their car with his scooter and
proceeds to beat him up to, then they throw his unconscious body in a landfill. When Bank wakes
up the next morning, he’s devastated to realize he’s missed the chance to take the exam. Later at
school, Lynn hears about what happened and visits Bank to ask him to join them, promising good pay.
At first Bank refuses, but Lynn changes his mind by pointing out how the system keeps cheating on
poor people like them and it’s only fair to cheat back. Now that they have all the memorization
covered, they finish planning their heist. Lynn and Bank will take the exam in Australia and hide
phones inside the buildings’ toilets. During the exam breaks, they’ll go to relieve themselves and
send the answers to Grace and Pat. For the last part of the exam with no break, they’ll just
pretend to feel sick. Grace and Pat will print out the answers on barcode stickers that will
be put on pencils, then those pencils will be distributed on bikes to the paying students so
they can have them right before their flights. To get even more clients, Pat makes a special
presentation imitating Steve Jobs, which gets them to earn millions. With her editing skills,
Grace makes fake paperwork and Lynn convinces her dad to sign them by saying it’s to participate
in the Australian branch of Teen Genius, now she can fly without an adult. Lynn and Bank
spend the following days doing practice exams and running to a bathroom to text the answers to train
their memory. The day before the exam, the group practices their crocodile tears and their alibis
in case they get caught. When it’s Pat’s turn, he mentions in his story that he doesn’t know Bank,
calling him a loser that woke up in a landfill. Bank gets furious and jumps on Pat to beat him up,
but the girls quickly pull them apart as Bank explains he never told anyone about the landfill.
This means Pat paid those thugs and made Bank miss the test on purpose so he could help them instead.
Bank quits the plan and leaves the building, but when he’s on the street, he sees a laundromat ad
and wonders if he can really have that life forever. Meanwhile Lynn is also disgusted by
what happened and quits too. Grace swears she didn’t know about it and asks Lynn to at least
not be mad at her because she treasures their friendship. Afterward Lynn goes looking for Bank,
who has decided to rejoin the group because if he got beaten up and lost his chance, then he at
least wants to be paid for it. Lynn doesn’t want to help, but Bank changes her mind by pointing
out it’s her fault he’s in this mess so she should take responsibility and fix it. A few hours later,
Lynn and Bank fly to Sydney. They’re awkward and silent the whole trip, but when they get there,
they reconcile and take a selfie together. The morning of the test, they hide the phones in the
bathrooms and then go to the classroom, where they quickly complete the first part of the test with
no issues. This gives them enough time to memorize the answers Once the time for the first break
arrives, Lynn and Bank run to the bathrooms and type their answers. However before sending his,
Bank asks for more money. Pat hates him for it and at first refuses, but since Bank points out
he wants compensation for being beaten up, Pat sends him half the money and promises to pay
the other half after the test. Bank takes it and finally sends his answers. A few minutes later,
Lynn and Bank return to the classroom and work on the second half of the test quickly as well.
However during the second break, they start to get in trouble. Bank gets to his stall fast,
but it takes him a moment to remember all the answers. He does manage to send them,
but the inspecting officer comes to knock on his door after noticing Bank is taking too long in
there. Bank panics and accidentally breaks the toilet lid, he also tries to flush the phone
down the toilet and fails, so he gets caught. Meanwhile, Lynn has to wait in line before she
gets access to her stall. She manages to send all the answers, but she’s also suspected of
taking too long. Luckily she thinks of hiding her phone in her shoes and escapes the bathroom
safely. However outside she discovers Bank being scolded and that all the students are
being searched, so she hides the phone in the water cooler before returning to the classroom.
Unfortunately Bank doesn’t return and Lynn has to do the last part alone. For a moment she thinks
she can’t memorize this much, but her hand begins to move unconsciously, and she realizes she can do
this if she memorizes it like a music sheet. The trick works, but now she doesn’t have much time
left, so she uses a pencil to force herself to vomit. Pretending to fill sick, Lynn leaves the
classroom, recovers the phone, and sneaks out of the building while avoiding the officers.
However her strange movements are noticed on the security camera and the officers begin to
chase her. Lynn runs down the subway station while typing the answers, but someone bumps
into her and steps on her phone. The screen is broken and Lynn thinks she can’t finish her job,
but after lots of pressing, she manages to send all the answers. This delay causes her to miss the
train and the officer catches her, asking her to come with him for questioning. On their way out,
Lynn slips the phone in a random person’s bag. While Pat and Grace are printing the answers,
Lynn’s dad shows up. He’s worried because Lynn won’t answer the phone, and he found this address
on the paperwork he signed. He wants to know what’s going on, so Pat and Grace make up a story
about Lynn and Bank being a couple. Supposedly they went on a trip together and Lynn lied to her
dad because she thought he wouldn’t approve. Satisfied with this answer, the man leaves,
and the duo can finish the stickers just in time to send all the pencils to the students. Back to
Lynn, she’s called to interrogation and finds Bank giving his story. He makes a sign telling
her not to get involved because he’s lying to cover everyone, so with tears in her eyes, Lynn
deletes the picture they took together. When Lynn goes home, Grace and Pat are waiting for her to
invite her to a party to celebrate their success. However Lynn turns them down. She feels horrible
because her scores were canceled and Bank got suspended, so she refuses to help the couple any
longer, pointing out that university exams aren’t multiple-choice anyway. Then she calls her dad to
pick her up, and when he asks about her boyfriend, Lynn has a breakdown and confesses everything to
him. This gets her expelled from school. Later Lynn leaves the group chat, ignoring Grace’s pleas
for her to join the party. Now she lost a friend and the victory doesn’t feel so good anymore. When
Lynn tries to apply to a local university to study education, the officer reminds her that a teacher
has to impart good morals too, which makes Lynn feel even guiltier. After the interview is over,
Lynn is surprised to get a text from Bank, asking her to come over. When she arrives at his home,
she notices he’s been using the money to greatly improve the equipment of the laundromat. Bank
explains he wants to make more money helping other students with their tests, and this time it’ll be
safer with a wider client base. When Lynn refuses, Bank threatens her to expose the whole affair.
However Lynn tells him she’s already made her choice. Sometime later, Lynn goes to see the STIC
organization, and with her father’s encouragement in mind, she confesses the whole thing.