I've been attending summer school for the last 2 weeks, and boy, oh boy it's frustrating. I've just finished grade 9 in June, and I decided to go to summer school to finish math 10.
When I got there, I had to finish 54 pages of math every week, along with 2 tests. It may not sound so bad, but this is a course ahead of my current level. I'm not even that smart, for god sake. (I've mentioned this in my "Asian parents" topic) Around here, the gap between math 9, and math 10 are quite huge. What I'm doing here is to finish a whole course in less than 4 weeks, but still know everything to prepare for the hellish Provincials/ Provincial exams.
The provincials are made for BC, and BC of Canada only. Why only BC? That, I do not know, but all I know, is that it affects 20% of my whole math 10 mark. It's made to be extremely hard. (Just search it up in google. I'm sure a good example will come up. My brother who was getting over a 80 % average in all his course, almost failed 3 courses, because of it. Still, he managed to get into an excellent college.) Even few of the teachers complained to the government that the test was far too hard. They made it somewhat easier, but not TOO much of a difference. Worst of all, without taking this test, I can't finish grade 10 math.
The only reason why I even attend there because it's free (For the first time around, it's free), and I thought to myself, that it'll be beneficial for futuristic events. What can I lose? Indeed, it's very useful, but the major thing is that the pace is too fast for me. I'm currently barely catching up, and my book is nearly useless in explaining everything I need to know. On our tests, the books didn't contain enough info for me to fully understand what I was supposed to do. I have to ask my teacher for about 3 questions per page, and is just barely understanding what I really need to know.
I am currently somehow managing to keep up a 81% which is an alright grade, in my standards. Until week 2, I thought I was doing fine, and said to myself, that "If I keep this up, I should be fine." But this was exactly the turning point. The next unit was Geometry, something I was horrible with.
When we started it, it wasn't too bad. I did everything right, and nothing seemed to be hard, but when I reached the half point, HOLY FUCK THIS IS FRUSTRATING. I have to graph this, that, solve this, slope that with this fraction, find the x if the y equals 9x+23+Q, etc.
Right now, I've done about 23 pages in Geometry, and we just had our practice test today. Even though I've read everything carefully, managed to solve about 3 or 4 questions, out of 18. My teacher even gave us these 2 packages to read and study over, because he said that everything in this unit isn't actually hard to understand the concept, it may be hard to understand. Even these pages are confusing, but has much more info than the text book.
For the next two weeks, I'm probably going to have to study like crazy, just to finish. I'll just hope for the best, and do everything I can. After that, study for about 2 months for the hellish provincials. (I chose to not do a provincial in the August, and do it in September instead.)
A funny thing is, the government has made this special course, to study for the provincials. But it's 90 dollars for a course that's less than a week long.
For anyone whose planning to do the same, to get ahead, I don't recommend it.... Unless you're so confident that you'll finish in no time with a decent grade, or if it's an easy course, or failed the course before, and is trying to get a passing grade. If not, I think the message should be clear. All I know is, that I'm never going to summer school to finish a grade ahead of the current one. Just finish everything early, get a job, and never worry about summer school. That's how it is going to be next year.
When I got there, I had to finish 54 pages of math every week, along with 2 tests. It may not sound so bad, but this is a course ahead of my current level. I'm not even that smart, for god sake. (I've mentioned this in my "Asian parents" topic) Around here, the gap between math 9, and math 10 are quite huge. What I'm doing here is to finish a whole course in less than 4 weeks, but still know everything to prepare for the hellish Provincials/ Provincial exams.
The provincials are made for BC, and BC of Canada only. Why only BC? That, I do not know, but all I know, is that it affects 20% of my whole math 10 mark. It's made to be extremely hard. (Just search it up in google. I'm sure a good example will come up. My brother who was getting over a 80 % average in all his course, almost failed 3 courses, because of it. Still, he managed to get into an excellent college.) Even few of the teachers complained to the government that the test was far too hard. They made it somewhat easier, but not TOO much of a difference. Worst of all, without taking this test, I can't finish grade 10 math.
The only reason why I even attend there because it's free (For the first time around, it's free), and I thought to myself, that it'll be beneficial for futuristic events. What can I lose? Indeed, it's very useful, but the major thing is that the pace is too fast for me. I'm currently barely catching up, and my book is nearly useless in explaining everything I need to know. On our tests, the books didn't contain enough info for me to fully understand what I was supposed to do. I have to ask my teacher for about 3 questions per page, and is just barely understanding what I really need to know.
I am currently somehow managing to keep up a 81% which is an alright grade, in my standards. Until week 2, I thought I was doing fine, and said to myself, that "If I keep this up, I should be fine." But this was exactly the turning point. The next unit was Geometry, something I was horrible with.
When we started it, it wasn't too bad. I did everything right, and nothing seemed to be hard, but when I reached the half point, HOLY FUCK THIS IS FRUSTRATING. I have to graph this, that, solve this, slope that with this fraction, find the x if the y equals 9x+23+Q, etc.
Right now, I've done about 23 pages in Geometry, and we just had our practice test today. Even though I've read everything carefully, managed to solve about 3 or 4 questions, out of 18. My teacher even gave us these 2 packages to read and study over, because he said that everything in this unit isn't actually hard to understand the concept, it may be hard to understand. Even these pages are confusing, but has much more info than the text book.
For the next two weeks, I'm probably going to have to study like crazy, just to finish. I'll just hope for the best, and do everything I can. After that, study for about 2 months for the hellish provincials. (I chose to not do a provincial in the August, and do it in September instead.)
A funny thing is, the government has made this special course, to study for the provincials. But it's 90 dollars for a course that's less than a week long.
For anyone whose planning to do the same, to get ahead, I don't recommend it.... Unless you're so confident that you'll finish in no time with a decent grade, or if it's an easy course, or failed the course before, and is trying to get a passing grade. If not, I think the message should be clear. All I know is, that I'm never going to summer school to finish a grade ahead of the current one. Just finish everything early, get a job, and never worry about summer school. That's how it is going to be next year.
