1. How does the author feel about her writing abilities? While reading the story about “proficiency” written by Shannon Nichols I read how she started her story by telling us how she was always a bright student who loved reading and writing with a passion to not fully giving up on writing but just not showing much effort anymore. Shannon had good grades until she took the “The proficiency test”. Ohio uses this proficiency test to determine if a high school student can graduate or not. In the story, Shannon took the proficiency test twice, and both times Shannon barely failed the test with 5 points. The first time failing caused Shannon to question her writing skills while also questioning the people grading the test but still wanted to give it her all the second time. Shannon wasn’t so lucky the second time taking the test which led to her downfall of being a writer. Ohio doesn’t tell students what they do wrong on the test so this made Shannon still question it till now. Based on the first sentence of paragraph 4 Shannon Nichols says and I quote “ I loved writing just as much as I loved math “. Compared to paragraph 8 line one Shannon Nichols says and I quote “ I began to hate writing, and I started to doubt myself “. We can see the difference the test did to her passion for writing which is her loving writing to hating it.
Has there been a time in your life when you doubted your abilities as a writer or in general? Explain. My time in High school would have been a time I doubted my ability as a writer. While getting low scores in English senior year, I slowly started to try to understand the lesson that was being given in class. We can say that I have gotten better at writing but the thing that bugs me is the fact my senior-year English teacher used to be a college professor so knowing I wasn’t able to score high in his class makes me question my writing a bit since he taught us in a college style way,
How do you feel about your writing abilities? If you asked me, I believe I’m a pretty good writer but I do need some improvement. In my opinion, I believe that I explain too much in my writing which is sometimes really unnecessary. I also want to fix my grammar because I do mess up once in a while.
How does the author feel about standardized tests? Shannon Nichols’s feelings towards standardized tests were negative and upset. In Shannon’s story, we learned that she was a bright student until she took the proficiency test. Failing the proficiency test twice had an impact on her passion for writing. Ohio, the state that gives these tests to high school students, doesn’t tell students why they fail which leaves the students clueless .Based on paragraph 6 line 1 Shannon Nichols says and I quote “People grading the tests didn’t have the slightest clue about what constituted good writing “. Shannon started to hate writing and at the end of the story she blamed the test for her lost connection to writing because the state of Ohio does not tell students what they did wrong. Shannon also said if she knew what she did wrong she would have fixed her mistake the second time she took the test. but since that didn’t happen Shannon forever thought she was a bad writer and is still clueless about her mistake on the proficiency test. In conclusion, Shannon blames the test for her hatred towards writing.
