Well… I just got back to my Xterra after taking my first precalculus exam and… let’s just say I’m not feeling too great about it.
I did my best, I wrote down everything I remembered and documented everything I typed into my calculator. But, I’d still be surprised if I passed. Why do I say that?
Well… frankly, that test was hard! Not only was I without a calculator for half of it, it was 100% closed-note and the professor purposefully wrote the test to be more challenging compared to our open-note homework. Basically, you really needed to know your shit to do well on the test, and memorizing formulas and shit like that just… isn’t my strong suit.
However, none of this really matters in the end. Whether I pass or fail, I just know that I did my absolute best. I spent almost the entire two-hour-and-fifteen minute test period with my head buried in the test, doing my best not to worry about the time or what other people around me were up to (even though there was a girl behind me who was literally in tears). I wrote everything down as I did the test (which showed me that I’d memorized way more than I was expecting), paced myself, occasionally took a couple of minutes to relax when I felt my heart racing too fast, and… again. I just did my very best.
When I got home, I was pleasantly surprised to see that, due to the fact that I did all of my math homework (and then some), I was holding an 88% in the class. Of course, compared to the exams, homework grades don’t really matter in terms of points. But, it did show me that I can do math in certain environments. Therefore, I shouldn’t give up even if I completely bombed this exam.
Just because I might fail a closed-note, half-without-calculator test in a room full of super stressed students, doesn’t mean I’m bad at math. I just can’t do math in such an environment for the same reason I can’t do anything when someone’s looking over my shoulder. That means that if I failed the exam, next time I need to do it in the testing center with my accomodations in place, so that I’m not distracted by sniveling, freaked out students, or people who completed the exam 15 minutes into it and loudly shut the door behind them (which probably means they gave up).
But, enough of that lamenting! I haven’t gotten my exam grade back yet and I probably won’t get it until tomorrow (at least). So, I’m just gonna keep on truckin’, as usual.
With the refund date a week behind me, I’m way too stubborn to quit, even though I was never taught trigonometry. In fact, a failing grade tends to motivate me even more to succeed, because I practically run on spite. If someone tells me I can’t do something, you bet your ass I’ll do it just to prove them wrong! It might take me a few tries, but I’ll eventually succeed (kind of like how it took me a few tries to get my Xterra out of a 2-foot-deep slush-drift this morning).
Plus, math is a very difficult subject. Sure, to some people, math comes easy. Some people get lucky and have a great experience in K-12 that enable them to fortify their math skills with rebar and everything! But, for most other people, math does not come easy. And, for people like me, not only does it not come easy, but I had much bigger problems to worry about. Much bigger problems…
That’s why there are far fewer mathematicians than there are writers and social workers. That’s why people are amazed when one manages to do well in math-heavy college courses. That’s why I’m still proud of myself even though the idea of failing a course stings.
Neither of my parents took College Algebra or Trigonometry. My dad took Pre-Calculus (or maybe it was Calculus) and barely passed with a C-. My mom took Statistics, got a mediocre grade in it, tried Organic Chemistry and ended up dropping it just before the final exam. My dad admitted to me that the reason why he didn’t pursue engineering was because of how hard he found Pre-Calculus/Calculus to be. And my mom dropped Organic Chemistry two weeks before the final and switched majors, because of how hard she found Organic Chemistry to be.
My grandma Debbie, who went to ACC for her nursing degree, would have failed Statistics had she not had help from the surgeons on the floor she worked overnights as a CNA at. My grandpa Lyle, who was really good at math in high school and was the Valedictorian, dropped Calculus the first time he took it at college, and passed with a C the next time he took it.
Why do I mention all of this? Partly to comfort myself as I brace for my exam grade to come back. But also to show that math is, indeed, hard. Especially when you’re asked to do it with no calculator for half of the test, no “cheat sheets” with formulas written on them, and no extra scratch paper. All while a student directly behind you is clearly in tears, and other students are going up to the professor trying to get her to answer their questions for them (seriously, at least four people went up to her to try to pry an answer from her).
So yeah…
Moral of the story, math is hard and people make it infinitely harder. Good news is, I think I have a solid game plan for the rest of the semester, and for the semesters to come.
I’m gonna do my best not to flunk this class (without jeopardizing my mental and physical health, of course). But, if I do, I’m not gonna beat myself over the head with the F (or, in my case, the W, because my 3.4 GPA is keeping my car insurance very cheap, and if I want to keep the discount, I gotta keep my GPA above a 3.0). Instead, I’m gonna figure out where my weaknesses are, spend the summer filling those holes, and go after this class again in the fall. In the meantime, I’m just gonna keep doing my very best, no matter what!
Or, in the words of my dad, I’m “finally gonna learn somethin’ for once!”
I have a cutesy little sticker on my car’s dashboard that reads, “Just try your best, and everything will fall into place.”
As silly as that sticker may be, it was a nice to read it again when I got back to my Xterra after taking my first precalculus exam. After all, I was convinced that I’d bombed that exam, given its difficulty and my “inability” to memorize even the shortest equations. But, I knew in my heart that I’d tried my absolute best on that test, and that’s all that mattered!
Fast forward to the next morning. I opened up my laptop to check my emails after getting ready for the day, and discovered that my precalculus exam grade had come back. I physically braced myself for the result as I clicked on the notification and instinctively let out a tremendous sigh of relief when I saw that I’d passed with a 77%!
Turns out, even in stressful environments where no calculators or notes are allowed, I really can do math!
The next day (Wednesday), the professor went over some statistics. The class average was 71%. Interestingly, I was one of the few “C” students in the class. Most people either got B’s and A’s or D’s and F’s. Upon reviewing the feedback I had on my test, I realized that I could’ve gotten a B or even an A, had I not made silly mistakes in my arithmetic (oh well… I still got partial credit for my work). Good news is, it’s easy to fix mistakes in basic arithmetic. The hard part is coping with my anxiety during a test, so I don’t get distracted and make silly mistakes.
That, of course, leads me to wonder why I ever doubted myself in the first place. Why I spent the rest of the day after my test convincing myself and everyone else around me that I completely ate shit. Well… as much therapy as I’ve done and as much confidence I’ve gained, I still have a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do...
