How school, exams and social stats actually work

Shujin asks you a question every few days and sits you down for exams four times a year, and for most of your first playthrough it looks like flavour. It isn't. School is the only part of the calendar that gives you a stat without spending an afternoon on it, and in a game where the afternoon is the currency, free is the whole point.

Every answer is in the class and exam answers database — filter by month, and it gives you the number of the option to pick as well as the text. This page is the other half: what those answers are actually buying you.

The five stats, and what they're gating

There are five, they each have five ranks, and they exist for one reason: to be a lock on the door of somebody's Confidant.

The thing worth internalising: a Confidant you can't advance is an afternoon you can't spend well. You arrive at Makoto with rank 2 Knowledge in June and the answer is «come back later», and later is an afternoon you wanted for something else.

Class questions: free, small, and never worth skipping

A question in class costs you nothing. It isn't an activity, it doesn't consume the afternoon slot, and answering it correctly adds a small amount of Knowledge. Answering it wrong costs nothing either — nobody is punished for a bad answer — which is exactly why the correct one is pure profit.

They come at you in ones, twos and threes: some days a teacher asks a single question, some days a classmate asks you something and the teacher follows up, so the same date appears two or three times in the table. They're listed in the order they're asked.

The exams: four weeks, eight questions, one prize

Four times a year — May, July, October, December — the calendar hands you an exam week. Over three days you answer eight questions, and unlike the class ones these are graded against the rest of your year.

Coming out first requires two things at once:

1. All eight answers correct. That part is the database.
2. Enough Knowledge. Rank 4 (Encyclopedic) is enough for the May exam. From July onwards you need rank 5 (Erudite) — being right isn't sufficient if the game doesn't believe you're clever enough to have been right.

Finish first and two things happen: your Charm goes up properly — not the trickle a class answer gives, a real chunk — and you can go and report to Sojiro at Leblanc, who hands over an accessory.

Null Sleep on the Leblanc Charm is the one to remember: sleep is the status that turns a manageable fight into a lost one, and getting an immunity to it in October costs you nothing but four right answers.

Raising the other four, without wasting days

Knowledge fills itself if you answer in class and study on rainy days — rain is a genuine multiplier, not a superstition. The other four have to be bought with time, so the trick is to pick the activities that pay two stats or pay a stat and a Confidant:

Crafting tools is the standout: you were going to need the tools anyway, and Proficiency comes attached.

If you're already behind

Two things are worth knowing before you panic. You will not max all five in one playthrough by accident — it's designed to be tight, and New Game Plus carries your stats over, which is the game telling you it doesn't expect you to. And if you have to choose, Knowledge first: it's the one that pays for itself, because the exams give Charm back, and the class answers cost nothing to collect.

January's questions are in the table too, and they only exist if you've unlocked the third semester. If you haven't, your school year ends on 12/22.