Brooke Pettipiece

Soaring colors

            It was 2016, the month of May, and it had been a long year in the class of Pre-AP Geometry. I had cried, laughed, and worked my butt off all for this last test, the SOL. It was a stressful time studying for this test that could either make me retake Geometry or move on to a much harder and advanced math class, Algebra 2. All year my teacher had given me a rough time on my grades and work ethic, but math hasn’t ever been my favorite or my best subject. I have always had to work harder for my grades and getting the problem right. Just a little background on my studies, I didn’t care that much until a few days before the nine weeks ended and report cards were sent out. So, my lowest grade of them all was a 49%. But none of that mattered when it came to the few days before taking this SOL.

            I had been studying for weeks, whether it was coming in early, IXL, extra homework, and even to the point of going over every SOL in the years past. I had done more work to get myself ready than anyone else in my class. As I was sitting there listening to my teacher tell us the rundown of getting good sleep, eating a good breakfast etc. I started to think “Hey, I’ve got this if I studied this hard and don’t pass then it wasn’t meant to be”. The night before the big test I looked over my formulas one last time and then went to bed early. I’m not typically a morning person but waking up and catching the scent of bacon and eggs made me want to jump out of bed and straight into the kitchen chair. I was ready for the day whether I was going to pass or not.

            We got into the school and had to go to our testing sites after attendance, I remember what I was wearing exactly. I had on comfy sweatpants, slippers with fuzzy socks, a t-shirt, and I brought a blanket and pillow. We sat there ready to start and I am ready. I’m ready. I’m ready to get this year of Geometry over with. It felt like it took forever to finish the test but it only took me two and a half hours.

 I raised my hand, the testing coordinator came over “Are you ready?”

“I hope so,” and I hit submit.

            At the end of that day, which flew by because I knew that all of the days of geometry would be over from here on out, I went to go check my score. I took Bailey with me and we went to see our teacher who had just gotten the scores back. Walking into that room all I wanted was a pass, I had been made fun of that I wouldn’t even get a pass much less a pass advanced.

            “Mrs. Munsey, what did we get?” we asked sounding like little school girls.

            “Hold on, let me find your scores. Here’s your bailey… and Brooke, good job.” She said waiting to see my reaction when I saw that I had gotten a pass advanced score of 505! She was more shocked than I was but she hid it by congratulating us and then more students flooded in to get their scores.

            That feeling of my hard work finally getting paid off in one day, it made me happy with myself and my ability to actually be motivated.