East High students prepare for the SAT tests, which means Gabriella must tutor Sharpay, and, as the school's Halloween dance approaches, they Tony and Gabriella are both distracted as they wonder what each other envisions for the future.
Kelsi falls for Jean-Claude, the new foreign exchange student at East High, and must find a way to overcome her shyness and find a way to outwit Sharpay if she wants to win his attention.
Troy leaves Gabriella out when he and his teammates decide to compete in the Battle of the Bands, and Sharpay forms a girl group to be their competition.
Troy keeps fending off invitations to the Sadie Hawkins dance--the culmination of Spirit Week at East High--waiting for Gabrielle to ask him, but communication breaks down when she becomes preoccupied with other problems and activities, and he is duped by Sharpay into believing Gabrielle has asked someone else.
Troy enlists Gabriella to help teach Chad and the other guys on the basketball team how to write poetry for an important class assignment, but the task goes sour for Gabriella when she accidently sees a poem Troy has obviously written about another girl.