Everything is easy if you put your mind in it. Of course, comparing to students in China, we American students have lighter loads in studying. But that does not mean our grades come as easy as stretching out your hands.
In China, your final grades depend on the scores you get for your final exams. So as long as you study very hard and review, you can get a good grade for the school year. But for students in America, it is not that simple.
From the first day of school to the end of the semester, the teacher will give you homework, class work, projects, quizzes, tests, and exams. Everything I’ve mentioned are a part of your final grade. So if you want to have an A in the end, you have to make sure you will get an A in everything you do, and that, is not easy.
I think homework and class work are the easiest among these tasks. As long as you listen to the teacher and do as he tells you, you can finish your class work and homework. But projects usually require longer period of time to finish and needs more effort than doing homework. And sometimes it will require you to have partner(s) to finish a project. In order to have an A in a project, first you have to make sure your work is detailed, and is what the teacher required. You also have to make sure your presentation of the project is nice.
Then to the different types of tests. If you are a hard working student, this may be easy for you. But not so many students are very hard working, so you have to do a hard review the day before each test. Still, something may happen on the test day, like you may feel bad and stressed and cannot be your best during the test. You cannot guarantee you will get A every single time, can you?
Ahh… so many things to do, just for getting an A in a class. At first it may be easy to get an A in the class, since you have only a few grades in your record. But as days passed by, you have more grades, and it will be harder to increase your percentage, but easy to decrease your grade. I remember the last few weeks of my second semester in Chemistry, I was getting a 96%, but I want to have a 97 or 98. I asked my teacher what I could do to increase my grade a percent or two. She told me even if I get A in everything I did for the rest of the semester, it can only raise my grade by 0.01-0.05. But if I get a B/C in a test, I may drop my grade by 1%.
So you see… in China you just have to study hard and get good grades in your final exams to get a good grade in your report card. But in America, you have to worry about getting good grades in everything you do in order to have a good grade in your report card. Which is easy, I ask you?
(to be continued)
B.L.