A penny for my thoughts?

While reading The New Paper today, abt the article of the top A level student with 7 As and a tragic story, i wondered.

Does having a sad story give some magical powers that automatically grant u better grades? Every year, there seems to be some top scholar who has a sad story. I'll give you one example.

Back in secondary school, when everyone was preparing for their O levels, me and my bestie Kenneth, was slacking. We never studied, we always played games, heck, we were late for one of the papers cuz we were gaming at my house.

Now, Kenneth for sure has a sad story.

Considering the fact that i beat him resoundingly in N Levels when neither of us studied, how did i get 23 for Os and how did he get 12? (which got him a newspaper interview btw)

Odd indeed. Maybe, i should kill myself when i have a son, so he'll get good grades.