Physics - CBEST Writing - describe one class which you faced difficulty

Hello all! Thank you for taking the time to read my post and please give me some advice/ suggestion about my writing! :)

trouble in a class

Writing Topic: Most students have had some type of difficulty in one course or another. In an essay to be read by an audience of educated adults, identify one class in which you faced difficulty as either a student or as a teacher, describe the difficulty, and how you handled the situation.

Imagine when you set in a room for an hour and the teacher looks like in a slow-motion movie that making speaking voice, but you hardly understand the abstract lines on the whiteboard. That is how I felt in my first physic class during my freshman year.

At that time, it was my first year of studying in the United States. Frankly, I was overwhelmed by learning the new concepts and extending my English skills at the same time. Indeed, my physics class gave me a head-on blow during the first week of the school. Well, not too much to blame on my teacher, just myself felt like I was sunk in the physic ocean but hardly to absorb any. I could not activate my prior knowledge or make connections to the lesson.

However, I cannot just give up without trying. I felt really embarrassed to talk to my professor about my situation because in my culture, is not normal to ask for help. My professor did give me some learning tips about the topic that we learned and allowed me to use a physical dictionary during the test. But still, I need more "magic spells" to crush this course.

Therefore, I started to look into mandarin physics' book to use my first language to help me re-learn the concepts. And link the concepts with the English expression that we used in the classroom. It does take extra learning time for me, but once I felt I started to understand the lecture, I became more engaged in the lesson as well as felt encouraged in the learning process. At the end of that class, I was safely passed my tests. Although I did not crush it perfectly, it stills a satisfied and memorable learning experience for me.

Zhu, the best accomplishment that you have with this piece of essay writing is that you were able to prove that your English skills have reached the point where you can properly understand the instructions being given to you in a test. Your essay has remained on topic throughout and you have shown a connected discussion going from one paragraph to another. You have done excellent work in regards to those presentation requirements. Now for the bad news.

Unfortunately, your English writing skills and vocabulary is not at the same level as your English comprehension skills. Since this is an essay test that focuses on your English writing abilities, you are expected to write clearly and coherently. That is why I am sad to tell you that I do not believe that you can get a score higher than 2 for this essay. The main reason that I believe your work is only at this level of scoring consideration is based on your writing skills and paragraph presentation.

Your word choice and usage is not always correct. You are using broken English throughout the presentation, without making an effort to try and create a properly structured sentence using proper vocabulary. Your sentence structures are all choppy and do not show any sign of you approaching at least an intermediate English user skill. Your paragraphing and sentence structure errors are so distracting, the reader tends to give up in trying to figure out what you are trying to say. There is a lack of clarity in your presentations due to your inability to properly format a simple sentence in English. You are trying to write complex sentences when you are not yet capable of doing so. Keep your presentations simple.

Try to work in some English sentence structure exercise time into your study period. Don't focus on the essay writing test at this point. You will not be able to pass that part of the test if your writing skills are this mediocre. Develop your sentence structure skills first, increase your vocabulary knowledge second, then do the essay writing test third or last. Only then will you be able to develop an essay that can properly inform the target audience.