Please murder the **** out of my essay:
[A] Describe a setback that you have faced. How did you resolve it? How did the outcome affect you? If something similar happened in the future, how would you react?
I was crying again. Sitting at my desk at 2 a.m. in the morning with a textbook I could barely understand, and desperately trying to memorize technical scientific terms in a language I could barely speak, I felt that life really was unfair.
I moved to Japan when I was 13, and was accepted to a prestigious private middle school in Tokyo. My parents were ecstatic that I was accepted, as was I, but there was one slight problem: I could not speak Japanese. However, the school was impressed by my level of English and felt that I would be an asset to their school. I knew that I very fortunate, and would need to fully take advantage of the opportunity presented before me.
Yet, I underestimated the difficulty I was about to bear. Please, expel all images of a western middle school, where fun and creativity in learning are cultivated and encouraged. Our school followed the quarter system: we had three sets of midterms and finals per year, which determined 90% of our grade. Instead of projects or plays, we had a lecture style teaching and plenty of exams. To add to the rigor, my language deficiency was enormously detrimental to my academic progress.
At first, I embraced my handicap in Japanese, and used it as an excuse. I was brought to Japan against my will, and wanted so badly to go back to America, where I had felt smart and significant. However, it soon began to dawn on me that I wasn't going to go back to America. The circumstances, as much as I wanted them to, were not going to turn in my favor.
Therefore, I needed to devise a new plan. First, I decided to focus on exams by recording lessons and by starting exam studies earlier. At age 14, I had already adopted the study habits of a high school senior, working until the wee hours of the morning and occasionally pulling all-nighters. Next, I approached my teachers for help, attending afterschool classes, or even one-on-one tutoring. The material was difficult: I had never learned most of it, and so even translating the words to English perplexed me.
And lastly, I would need to embrace a different mindset. I no longer saw my language deficiency as an excuse, but as a reason for me to work two or even three times harder than my classmates. It frustrated me to see my friends go out while I stayed in to study; and it was even more frustrating to see that even if I studied harder and longer, I still received lower grades than many of my classmates. However, I began to see my effort translate into scores. Although I was unable to excel in this school, I improved drastically; and this helped me develop valuable skills and establish an ambitious attitude which have helped me succeed in my current school, and which I hope to utilize at the University of Michigan. If again put in a situation where I feel disadvantaged, I would not recoil, because I know that every handicap must be replaced with effort and determination to not allow it to hinder my potential to succeed.
(532 words)
[A] Describe a setback that you have faced. How did you resolve it? How did the outcome affect you? If something similar happened in the future, how would you react?
I was crying again. Sitting at my desk at 2 a.m. in the morning with a textbook I could barely understand, and desperately trying to memorize technical scientific terms in a language I could barely speak, I felt that life really was unfair.
I moved to Japan when I was 13, and was accepted to a prestigious private middle school in Tokyo. My parents were ecstatic that I was accepted, as was I, but there was one slight problem: I could not speak Japanese. However, the school was impressed by my level of English and felt that I would be an asset to their school. I knew that I very fortunate, and would need to fully take advantage of the opportunity presented before me.
Yet, I underestimated the difficulty I was about to bear. Please, expel all images of a western middle school, where fun and creativity in learning are cultivated and encouraged. Our school followed the quarter system: we had three sets of midterms and finals per year, which determined 90% of our grade. Instead of projects or plays, we had a lecture style teaching and plenty of exams. To add to the rigor, my language deficiency was enormously detrimental to my academic progress.
At first, I embraced my handicap in Japanese, and used it as an excuse. I was brought to Japan against my will, and wanted so badly to go back to America, where I had felt smart and significant. However, it soon began to dawn on me that I wasn't going to go back to America. The circumstances, as much as I wanted them to, were not going to turn in my favor.
Therefore, I needed to devise a new plan. First, I decided to focus on exams by recording lessons and by starting exam studies earlier. At age 14, I had already adopted the study habits of a high school senior, working until the wee hours of the morning and occasionally pulling all-nighters. Next, I approached my teachers for help, attending afterschool classes, or even one-on-one tutoring. The material was difficult: I had never learned most of it, and so even translating the words to English perplexed me.
And lastly, I would need to embrace a different mindset. I no longer saw my language deficiency as an excuse, but as a reason for me to work two or even three times harder than my classmates. It frustrated me to see my friends go out while I stayed in to study; and it was even more frustrating to see that even if I studied harder and longer, I still received lower grades than many of my classmates. However, I began to see my effort translate into scores. Although I was unable to excel in this school, I improved drastically; and this helped me develop valuable skills and establish an ambitious attitude which have helped me succeed in my current school, and which I hope to utilize at the University of Michigan. If again put in a situation where I feel disadvantaged, I would not recoil, because I know that every handicap must be replaced with effort and determination to not allow it to hinder my potential to succeed.
(532 words)
