Project #3
Was it overconfidence? Indifference? Just living in the moment? Laziness? Perhaps a combination of all four? I had always done well in daily classes and homework; maybe it was the idea of just being in the moment that was most guilty when it came to demonstrating my understanding and knowledge of exams. Case in point: there were less than three minutes left as I numbly stared at my answer sheet, frightened at what I saw. There were no bubbles of possible answers anywhere in sight of most of the questions. The scantron would have little to capture, and I did not have that much time left. Replenishing my lungs to calm myself, I began bubbling frantically, and all the while disgusted, I had once again placed myself in such a preventable position.
Excellent classwork and grades aside, I had lulled myself into feeling comfortable about not entirely focusing when taking tests. I knew the material and any need to confirm it was a bit pointless, so I did not bother changing. The significant downside of this tendency became starkly apparent when I encountered my first-ever AP exam, Biology. I was prepared and knew I knew the material, but once the exam started, it was like every other time. I was focused, but not really as I glared at my enemy, the clock. I had an eternity, twenty minutes left, as I had completed solving most of the multiple-choice problems. However, I had not put any of my answers on the answer sheet, and I still had a few harder questions left to unpack and choose the correct letter — A, B, C. or D. It took the fifteen-minute warning to break my unfocused trance. Noting the difficult questions and the entirely blank answer sheet were competing for my time and attention, I once again predictably, panicked, only to scramble to make my №2 pencil do the impossible.
As section one came to an end, my eyes could not mask the reality; only 27 pencil marks out of 70 possible opportunities stared back at me. Was it overconfidence, or even worse, indifference, that caused my comfort with such mediocrity? I loved to learn, but I certainly was not demonstrating it to my teachers — or myself. During the break between sections one and two, I realized how badly I screwed up. An immediate change was needed, and I could only turn to myself to enact it. Returning for the second half of the exam, I put my full effort into trying to earn at least a passing grade of “3”, an unlikely outcome considering the handicap I had already created by my lazy habits. Finally determined, I had bubbled in and rechecked every answer before the clock had even caught my eye, much less sounded the end of the exam. After the test, I was pretty annoyed with myself for making this mistake, especially on an AP exam where the return on my effort is even more significant.
However, the worst part of this “real” learning experience is that my teachers had reminded me time and again to bubble as we went to avoid such problems, but I did not care because it never happened to me. Thankfully, I did receive a score of “3”, but I was further inspired toward changing my “testing” aversion, realizing I could have performed even better. Since then, I have not suffered a similar testing fate. Most importantly, I learned the invaluable lesson of listening to my teacher, rather than to my misguided thinking.
Artist Statement
The story I choose to write about is an event that happened to me with some additions. The story is about someone who does not focus or put enough effort and doesn’t really listen to their teachers causing them to make a huge mistake which causes them to reform themselves to never make the same mistake again. I tried to use many different words to provide a better image of the events of the story. It is from a 1st person POV to better show how the person has reformed after learning about what he has done wrong. I tried to add more vocab than I usually do to try and make the voice more vivid and descriptive. Throughout the story, I tried to express how the character in the story has reformed from not listening to his teachers that much and not focusing in school to trying the best he could to do better in school. The challenges I experienced in this project was trying to accurately present the characters original and new views on effort and focus. I also had a hard time describing things accurately enough. I solved this by thinking about my own perspective on this and how I felt I would change if this happened to myself and for the second challenge I used a lot of time just searching synonyms that I could use to replace the original words. I learned a lot from this project like how to better portray the character’s changes and their attitude towards things.
