Blog #1: Multiple Choice Reflection

The first AP Lit multiple choice assessment of the year, if only a pretest to see where we stand at this early point, did not go over as well as I would have hoped. Although this is a new year with a new curriculum, and the methods and knowledge we had learned (and presumably retained) in AP Comp do not exactly apply, I scored a low 11/25, or 44%. For me, one of the skills I should know how to apply and yet still do not yet fully do, is the close reading of the text at hand. I understand the importance and helpfulness of close reading, yet when presented with so many questions, and so little time, my conscience seems to escape me and I merely underline interesting lines or words. Another problem caused by the time crunch is that I tend to believe there is less time than there actually is, so I stumble through the text not reading it completely and missing key components, which further lead into my bad scoring. Time management is something I need to work on so I can calmly analyze the text without rushing my mind. Another source of my demise is that we have not yet learned the information needed to answer some of the questions pertaining to devises used. This information, however, will surely come and decrease the amount of points lost in that department.  Similarly, another source of my troubling score is the different types of questions we have not been presented with before. In AP Lit we are asked more "philosophical" (a mon avi) questions than in AP Comp, drawing parallels between the literary world and ours, and analyzing extremely extended metaphors. Overall I would deem my score not so concerning at the moment but I certainly have plenty of room and directions to grow. I am looking forward to wonderfully informative year.