Last year during my Junior Year, I took AP US History and I loved it. It was my favorite class, but I was really really bad at it. I loved learning about US History though; the founding fathers, Women’s Suffrage, World War II, the Civil Rights Movement. I was so passionate about it but it was clearly obvious I was way behind everyone else in my class. I would fail tests and my grades would sink, which didn’t help because there wasn’t much I could do to raise the grades, since tests were worth the majority of my grade in that class. I was doing great on essays and projects, yet my tests were awful. My teacher, Mr. Rodgers, allowed our class to do corrections for the tests, so I took advantage of that. It wasn’t enough to raise my grade significantly. Around Thanksgiving break, I decided to make a change. I started studying for tests with other people, I asked friends for help. We would meet the day before the test to go over notes, study guides, and concepts I didn’t understand. It really helped to talk with other people about the material and hear concepts multiple different ways from different people. Another resource I started taking advantage of was my teacher. Mr. Rodgers was a godsend. He made sure I understood things, and we met frequently before school so that I could go over things I just didn’t get. He let me do corrections and retakes and made sure that I understood the material while still getting decent grades, instead of only caring about what the grades looked like. I worked hard, I studied a lot, and I asked questions. So many questions. I tried my best, and sometimes I wanted to give up and forget about it but I couldn’t do that. I took the AP test in May, and thanks to my friends and Mr. Rodgers, I surprisingly got a 3 and passed. I was so happy and thankful for people that gave me strategies and solutions to not understanding it.
