1. How does the author feel about her writing abilities? The feeling that the author had about her writing abilities was an emotional wreck due to the fact that she had failed her proficiency test, not once but twice which lowered her self-esteem & confidence to continue to improve. In the text, paragraph 3-5, she expressed how she was surprised by the test results which led to a failing grade to the point where she got emotional. Later on, she took the test again to try to make up her errors and failed again by half a point. This led to her feeling like a failure and disappointment.
2. How does the author feel about standardized tests? The author feels like standardized tests are full of anxiety because it takes months of preparation to try to gain as much knowledge and courage as possible to get an excellent grade. Each standardized tests are determined for students to receive a high school diploma by the end of their 4-year journey. Considering the fact that most students may feel like they’re worthless and full of failures if they indeed get a failing grade, especially the author. In the text, the author states that, “I felt like a failure. I had disappointed my family and seriously let myself down. Worst of all, I still couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong”. This quote provides evidence that standardized tests have an extreme amount of pressure if you aren’t mentally and emotionally ready for it.
3. The author’s journey as a writer was definitely a difficult challenging stage in her young career to become a successful writer due to all the obstacles thrown in her path. As a strong student that was always featured herself on the honor roll and a GPA that was 3.0 or above, led to her believing that upcoming errors and failures weren’t going to be apart of any of her worries. She continued to push herself for future tests and assignments to make sure her grades wouldn’t fall off track, knowing that in her mind if she failed once, she wouldn’t know how to deal with failure. The experience for her wasn’t as she expected it to be by failing her writing test and when she noticed her kryptonite, instantly a self doubt was created in her mind that she wasn’t great at writing due to the test results not being favored in her side.
4. I would say my writing abilities weren’t always great at times and it isn’t the best however, as I continued to improve my vocabulary and come more to my english class to expand my writing. I started to practice more on my reading, word play, and becoming more of a disciplined student to become better at writing so that I can feel like I can do anything I set my mind to.
