A famous saying coined by Neil Bohr states that, "An expert is any person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." By that logic, I should be an expert by now, because every single mistake that could possibly be made by a human being on a multiple choice test has been made by me. And yet, expertise has still not sauntered my way. I can say, however, that I've gotten better! From the beginning of AP Comp to the end, my percent error has lowered by a perceptible amount which I qualify as a plus. The cause for my slight success is definitely my newfound -- and still very rickety -- control of my stress levels.
By forcing myself to calm down, I've been able to take my time and actually analyze and annotate the text. Distinguishing allusions from normal sentences has become easier along with picking up on the tone of a piece -- the slower you read, the easier it is to hear an author's sarcasm. I'm quite good at playing right into the College Board's trap by eliminating all choices but two -- the choice that's the answer and the choice that's the distraction from the answer. Further eliminating the distraction is an entirely different ball game. Still, all in all, calming down and taking my time is definitely a good skill to have.
Today, however, this skill turned against me. I took too much time. By the time the bell rang, I had two passages left to read. I've entered a poison patch and it's time to start picking. Run out of time, but complete more accurate answers? Or finish on time, but complete more inaccurate answers? I also really need to work on my vocab. I thought I was fairly well versed in literature lingo from Comp, but I'm not. There were a couple times I had to guess at the meaning of words in the multiple choice questions and answers, and I even had to use context clues for some of the words in the passage.
But I'm going to try to be S.M.A.R.T. about it (pun intended, of course). By the time finals roll around for first semester, I want to be able to finish an entire multiple choice test in 55 minutes, allowing myself five minutes to go back through the test and review my chosen answers, while scoring at least an 80%. I'll start timing myself while doing take home multiple choice tests, training my brain to read analytically at a faster pace. In addition, I'll make flashcards of lit vocab and even flip back through my comp notes and review with those. By first semester finals, I'll have all my flashcards memorized. And for my third goal, (something that will benefit all my activities) I'm going to teach myself how to get some sleep. By the week of finals, I want to have a system that never fails to get my sorry butt into bed by 11:00, providing me with 6 hours of deep, stress relieving sleep. I'm fully convinced that the more rested I am, the better I'll perform anywhere. And then maybe, just maybe, I won't have to pick a poison at all.
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