Cooked: Your Chem Midterm Grade in Epstein's Preferred Age Range

You're cautiously optimistic about last week's chem midterm. Sure, you indulge in nightly reels before bed; you spent a weekend standing in line, courtesy of OFSL; you skipped a lecture or two or three, plus the last lab. But you've also solidly avoided stepping on the compass. It can't be that bad.

Then your professor begins the lecture with an announcement: "The class average came out to a 67." (You can't make this up.) "Many of you scored in the A range."

Those numbers don't seem right.

"Unfortunately," she continues, "several students also received scores below 20%."

There's the answer to your mathematical quandary. With a shiver, you realize you're doing numbers only child sex offenders are excited to hear.

The lecture ends in a blur. You are in possession of Schrödinger's grade: until you get your score, it is simultaneously passing and within Epstein's preferred age range. You're hurt. You figure if you must emulate the guy, at the very least, you should've boasted an illustrious career as a multi-millionaire financier before reaching this point. Instead, you've skipped straight to the teens.

Much like his files, the test is yet unreleased—but you're pretty sure you know what's on there, and it's nothing good. You reside in purgatory until the inevitable. You long for a way to escape this limbo (some kind of island getaway, perhaps), but in layman's terms, it is cooked. 

There is no hope. No 13-year plea deal. With the heavy steps of the damned, you leave the lecture hall a mere (valence?) shell of who you once were.