Gr.10 Reflection: Academics

This year, I had a lot of academic challenges where many included tests and projects. The greatest challenge, however,  was probably taking AP Calculus AB. I took AP Calculus AB because I thought that I would be able to finish the course successfully. In the beginning, I struggled quite a bit. Comparing AP Calculus from grade 12 math, there was definitely a huge gap of difficulty. As the course continued, I naturally began to adapt to it's difficulty level. By taking this course, I learned a lot of things. First, I learned a lot of math which i know will come in handy someday in my future career. Second, I became aware of my aptitude in learning new things; as I said, AP Calculus had a lot of new contents that I have never learnt before. My problem solving and    calculating skills improved significantly by taking this course. Furthermore, I gained a lot of confidence. In a way, taking AP Calculus prepared by to be successful in grade 11. Since I already took a challenging course in grade 10, I believe I will be prepared to take any courses with similar difficulty level in grade 11. There were several ways that helped me to be successful in this course. One way was setting small goals for myself. Each unit or chapter test, I set small goals for tests; this allowed me to study without any pressure since these were realistic goals that I set for myself. Other way was just looking over what I learned each day, which consisted of doing reasonable amounts of homeworks. Keeping up with homeworks was one of the most effective ways of getting an A in the class; laziness was not an option for this course. Also, it was necessary to listen to the teacher during classes. One time, I daydreamed during class and I had to relearn the entire chapter through tutorials and googling. Tutorials were a lot of help for me this year. I often attended them to get answers to questions that I did not know. I must say that I struggled a lot for the AP Calculus AB exam. Since this was my first AP exam, I was scared beyond measure. Also, there were a lot of contents to study for. I did not have any unique way of preparing myself for the AP Exam. First, I solved all the practice problems given in class and identified my weak points. Second, I solved a bunch more questions on my weak points. Third, I solved even more problems by solving practice problems and solving past AP free response questions. I believe that one's mark is concurrent to the amount of question he solves; the more he/she solves, the higher mark he/she gets. Overall, I believe I had a successful year with a final mark of 94%.