The Difference
I have always thought of myself as a very intelligent person. I got good grades all the time when I was younger. During the end of middle school there was advanced and honors placement tests, for kids who got a GPA of 3.0 or higher. During this time, I was a huge overachiever I went for every extracurricular activity, from science project to asking for extra homework, so taking this tests were a must. While entering that bitter cold class, with the smell of freshly sharpened pencils, I was for the first time extremely nervous. I couldn't stop shaking my legs and messing around with my pencils. I was always mentally prepared to take any test and I hardly thought that I had to study very long to pass and would do it with flying colors. Sadly, after the test was done and results were in, I only had 2 honors class. As my sophomore year began, my sister had taken the same tests as me. Being the older brother, I always made sure she was doing well in class. She was a bit over average when it came to school and never did extra work. On the day she got her results she had 6 out of 8 classes honors or advanced. That's when I knew there was a huge difference between me and her. That's when I stopped trying as much.
Learning about my sister, I felt different from when I was all about doing more. I felt like I was just doing the wrong thing by trying so hard. Starting my sophomore year, I decided to take mostly normal classes and no advanced classes. I began to just go with the flow with everything, if I had homework I would only do it if I had nothing else to do.
My sister and I were very different in our approaches to our homework and test strategies in school. I was the sort of person to make a revision schedule, stick to it, and truly dedicate myself to what I wanted, which was successful in the getting to understand the topic, even when it meant occasionally having to pass up on other fun stuff. My sister, however, did hardly any of the...