I also decided to rethink my goals for the SAT I and II, ACT, and APs after reading a few articles.
SAT: 1350 or higher
ACT: 32 or higher
APs: 4 or higher on all APs
SAT II Subject Tests: 650 or higher
I just felt I wanted to be more realistic with more scores. I kind of feel like I’m selling myself short though. Is this an okay thing to do? Is it better to be real with myself, or tell myself that if I study just long enough, I can go even higher? I’m going to be honest, I’ve developed major testing anxiety over the past few months. Once I got my Chemistry SOL score, I asked my teacher what she thought about it. She said that that is where she expected my score to be and that it tells me that AP Chemistry might be a struggle for me. She said I should expect to get through AP Chemistry with a C and that that was just the hard truth. She also said that maybe I won’t truly be able to grasp Chemistry and that maybe it’s just something I won’t ever truly understand. After that talk, I just felt like going to the bathroom and crying a little. This whole year, Chemistry was the only class I truly stressed myself to do well in. I put so much pressure to do well in that class, but I always do something wrong that ends up not allowing me to truly succeed, like procrastinating on homework or just having a point in the year where it became really hard to do my homework at home since I couldn’t concentrate there, which led to doing most of my homework at the library whenever I can or not at all, which was rare. It really started to hurt me in February and March, once we started doing Moles and Stoichiometry. I felt I wasn’t studying enough and I apparently didn’t. I would’ve had very low test scores had it not been for my teacher allowing me to finish the test. During those tests, out of nowhere, I had started to get math anxiety. I wasn’t sure where to put the numbers I was using and what they meant and I spent so much time trying to figure it out that when class was over and I’d only finished half the test. I’m usually very confident with Math, especially math as basic as Stoichiometry and Moles go, but I don’t think I truly knew what those numbers meant. At first, I got a 40 on the Moles Test and then, after some intense studying, got an 83. I don’t know if it was because it was the middle of the year and I was feeling so much stress and anxiety, or whatever. After that Moles Test, I really did want to cry. I went to bathroom and blamed myself for not studying hard enough, for not truly learning the material, and for slacking off. That day, I learned there are truly two sides to me, the slacker and the hard-worker. The slacker is the part of me that tells me why bother, while the hard-worker in me tells me to get off my ass, do the work, but the work is never good enough. I constantly criticize and sell myself short, and I’m never able to truly congratulate myself for a job well done. I’m always working, but never truly happy with myself. Maybe I just don’t think I’m good enough. I want to hopefully try to fix this soon.
After I have those talks with my Chemistry teacher, I go to the AP Chemistry teacher and talk to her about it. After the whole Moles Test disaster, she made me feel so much better about myself and I stopped beating myself up a little bit. She motivated me, told me that it wasn’t a big deal, and that it was something I’d to work in AP Chemistry. She told me that students will go into AP Chemistry with strengths and weaknesses. I had told her my strength in Chemistry was Nomenclature, the only test I had an A on this year. All of my other tests were in the high to low B+ to B range, but I put full responsibility on myself for not studying enough. I actually study pretty well. I usually try and study two nights before the test for Chemistry, do some practice problems, and watch Crash Course Chemistry, Bozeman Science, and Khan Academy vidoes on YouTube. She also said something that made me want to be in her Chemistry class this year, instead of my current teacher’s class, and next year for AP Chemistry. She said that if I need any help next year, or this year, with Chemistry, that she would love to help. Even if I have the only other AP Chemistry teacher, she’d be be happy to help me if I need it because, as she put it, “I want to see you succeed, not fail in Chemistry. Based on what your Chemistry teacher told me about you, you’re definitely a very hardworking student who could use a little help and motivation. I know you feel like Chemistry seems impossible for you to grasp, but you’re not alone. I wasn’t a natural at Chemistry at first, even after trying my hardest. But once I started getting help from my teacher, it made much more since. One on one help really did wonders for me and sent me from a B student to an A student. I believe it can do the same for you too.” I remember that entire speech, which she told me after I told her about my SOL score, because it honestly made me feel so much better. That’s the difference between her and my current Chemistry teacher. My current teacher likes to tell me what she thinks is “the hard truth”, but it doesn’t really help me as much as it hurts me. It doesn’t motivate me, but I feel puts this idea in my head that I’ll never be good enough at Chemistry. That I’ll always struggle with it. The AP Chemistry teacher actually motivates me, gives really good motivational speeches, and doesn’t seem unenthusiastic or burdened to help me, unlike the AP Chemistry teacher. The AP Chemistry, during lunch one time, actually spent 5 minutes of her own time to teach me about significant figures, something that my current Chemistry teacher would be too bothered, or tired, to do. I feel like whenever I ask for my current teacher for help, she seems really tired and unenthusiastic, I know she has kids and all, so that could be it, however, I like the AP Chemistry teacher’s attitude of gratitude on life much more. She seems genuinely happy and she always has the brightest smile on her face when she sees me.
I don’t know what lies ahead next year, and I don’t know if I’ll stop beating myself up, but I hope that I’ll at least have that AP Chemistry teacher next year. I hope I’ll maybe have a better outlook on life too.
I apologize for this terribly, long rant, but I felt I needed to vent a little bit. Something I rarely do, even around my parents. I’m usually more of an “opinions to myself” kind of person.
. At least the test didn’t hurt me too bad. It was worth 10% of our year grade.