Summary
1. How does the author feel about her writing abilities?
At the beginning, before she takes the test she felt good about it. She loved writing and thought that it was one of her strengths. But everything changed after failed on the test. She began to hate writing and also began to doubt herself, since when she thought she was good she didn’t pass.
2. How does the author feel about standardized tests?
The author the standardized test was challenging since it was about reading, writing, math and citizenship. After taking the test she did feel surprised because she failed on writing. She was also feeling pressured about taking it and just when she decided not to try so hard, she passed on the test.
3. Retell the author’s journey as a writer.
The high school students from Ohio needed to take a test in order to graduate and receive a high school diploma. When Shannon Nichols was on eighth grade she did take the test for the first time, but she failed. She considered herself as a strong student and all her English teachers appreciated her writing, but she failed on writing by half a point. That made her surprised and she start hating writing, even though she loved writing prior to the test. After some months, when she got over it, she took the test for the second time, and for the second time she failed by half of a point. Shannon tried to understand what happened and even asked to her teacher how could she fail twice on writing, but no one knew the answer, since the Ohio state does not explain about it. When she tried the test for the third time, she decided not to try so hard, and that time, she did pass i. But because of what happened the first two times, now Shannon Nichols don`t take English seriously anymore.
4. If you were Mrs. Brown, the author’s English teacher, what would you say when the author asked: “How can I get A’s in all my English classes but fail the writing part of the proficiency test twice?”
If I was the teacher, I was going to remember her few things. A test not always can measure how good you are at something. Writing can be subjective sometimes, so you don’t always know exactly how the person who is going to judge your work. Everybody has bad days and that can impact on how to you do a test. Also, anxiety unfortunately can make things difficult when you pressure yourself a lot, so you do not always you do your best if you’re feeling super pressured about it.
5. Has there been a time in your life when you doubted your abilities as a writer or in general? Explain.
One time in my life when I doubted about my abilities of writing was when I was in college before, and I needed to write an article. I also needed to do a presentation and be judged by the article and the presentation. I didn’t have much time for the research of the topic and all the writing, so I was really scared thinking I was not going to be able to do it and really doubted myself until I saw my work done.
6. How do you feel about your writing abilities?
I consider my writing ability reasonable. Not the best, but not the worse as well. In Portuguese the ability can be a little better since sometimes I feel that it can be hard to find some words in English to explain something.
