Despearte help in English NEEDED

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>You know how there are people who are good at English but not really at Math? I am sort of the opposite...</p>

<p>I'd prefer someone who's naturally GOOD at English to share their opinions. English is my worst subject. I really don't get it at all in terms of all areas of English. I survived my last marking period with a 92. But it's going to get harder since we're getting into more reading.</p>

<p>Like I mentioned, I'm like horrible at all concepts of English. I'll tell you all the areas I suck at.</p>

<p>Grammar/Sentence Structure-I always get red-pen marks over my English papers, suggesting I have a bad writing in grammar. Sometimes sentence structure confuses me like in PSAT. Out of all the choices, I always eliminate down into three or four possible right answers, only giving me 25% chance of getting the point.</p>

<p>**************Reading-I always don't GET all the things from the book which is bad for pop-quizzes I get on weekly basis. The quizzes are really specific questions too. But I am a bad reader, ESPECIALLY when it comes to Shakespearean works. Like I am reading Macbeth, and I have no clue of what's going on...
Personally, I read only 250 words per minute(that's about the fastest pace I can read) and I don't understand about 7-10 vocabulary words per page(up to 10-25 for college-level books).</p>

<p>-Do you think I should read more? Over 2 years in middle school, I DID only read about 8 books which is epic failure. High school, as I realized I suck at English, was different. I tried to read more and put effort in order to become one of those people "Good" at English. Not just math and science.</p>

<p>Vocabulary-My use of vocabulary words is weak and tenuous. I tend to sometimes use the words in a wrong way. This is why I've gotten a 39/80 on PSAT on the reading portion of the test. How do I improve in vocabulary? My friend who LOVES READING got like 78/80 on Critical Reading...</p>

<p>Shakespearean works/Poetry- I don't get them. That's it. It's a concise statement, I don't understand them... Shakespeare's plays word things weirdly, and poetry is hard to find out what it's actually saying and stuff.</p>

<p>*****SAT Critical Reading/Writing- I'm a legit failure when it comes to English portions of this standardized test. Math I got 65/80 once which was okay, but let's not get off topic here. I LEGITLY don't understand 99% of the vocabulary words like I am not even kidding. Mostly I guess on everything which is why I suck, but how is it possible to know what you're doing in Critical Reading(that's how desperate I am...)? I also don't get the big, fat paragraph and answering the questions... I don't know sometimes the literary terms asked in paragraph questions... I also don't get WRITING which is the grammar part... That I just need to learn which I don't in high school b/c my former English teachers didn't teach me enough English grammars.</p>

<p>-This I really need to improve and would love a good suggestion.</p>

<p>I PERSONALLY blame my middle school teachers, because they never taught me anything that I needed to know to prepare for English class in high school. One of them actually taught me WRONG- she pointed out how you have to put comma between compound sentences but I've never seen high school English teachers mark off for not putting comma between two conjoined sentences.. I also only read like 3 books OVER the year, one of them actually not being finished, in 7th grade. Only about four books in 8th grade.</p>

<p>Is it reading? Do I just need to read 4-5 hours a day? Which is going to be pain but I'll be willing to try anything to be good at English. I am currently reading Blacklist by Sara Paretsky. I read it in study hall which was about 40 minutes but I only read ten freaking pages in order to get ALL LITTLE DETAILS...I also wrote one post-it for one of the pages so. I really need to develop a faster reading habit and comprehension ability.</p>

<p>And I'm recommended for English III Honors for my junior year... I am certainly not ready unless I make a HUGE improvement over this sophomore year AND keep getting a good grade in English II Honors.</p>

<p>OH BY THE WAY, I am not a native English speaker. I've been here about six years in U.S. which should be ENOUGH time to master this language, but apparently I am not intelligent enough to master all areas at English.</p>

<p>What do you suggest me to do? I'm asking generally what I should do to improve all my aspects of English. It seems to me that "reading" lovers are the only good people in English, and I don't read in my spare time and I'm guessing that's what I'm lacking.</p>

2

<p>
[quote]
Shakespearean works/Poetry- I don't get them. That's it. It's a concise statement, I don't understand them... Shakespeare's plays word things weirdly, and poetry is hard to find out what it's actually saying and stuff.

[/quote]

For Shakespeare (and whatever else that you don't understand on the first reading) don't try to read through it as fast as you can. Take it a sentence at a time, if you're not understanding it, and look up the words (OR read it on enotes and you can highlight a word and get it defined for you - just don't read the stupid "modern translations" because that will NEVER help you in the long run), and try to sort out the word order by finding the subject and the verb, then place the other parts into the sentence to figure it out.</p>

3

<p>Just read. A LOT. Find a genre you love. For me it was fantasy, and I would spend 6-7 hours/day during the school year in middle school reading. I was a huge nerd for reading, but I got an 80 on the PSAT under CR last year two 36s on the Reading on the ACT, and an 11 and 12 score on the ACT, and I owe it all to reading so much.</p>

4

<p>Too bad that I haven't started finding reading interesting... I guess I'll have to find some that I might like.</p>

<p>But Marlow, I get impatient... I really lose interest because of my slow reading. How do you read 6-7 hours a day? I really don't know how I'm capable of doing that. How can I facilitate my reading? OR more importantly, how do I get into books if it's a good way to be good at English?</p>

5

<p>PLUS I am not an English native speaker. Is it only possible for native speakers to pick up vocabulary words without looking up dictionary and understand everything and then be really good at Critical Reading and Writing research papers? I just hope this is not the END for me to become good at English... I honestly felt I am the worst out of my English 2 Honors when I got B+ on my paper and everybody else got As and even A+s..</p>

6

<p>So if I set my goal on reading 100 novels this year, will I improve greatly?</p>

7

<p>Yeah, I would try and mix some high level books in there too for a challenge though</p>

8

<p>if you're going to do that you might benefit from a supporting group :)
50</a> Book Challenge</p>

9

<p>I would suggest that you read a lot. And if full 200+ page books are too much for you right now, try a newspaper. But don't read just any old newspaper because most of them are at an elementary school level. The Wall Street Journal has great vocabulary. Just read an article or two once a day, or if you go with books, try to read a chapter once a day. Taking a long time with a book can mean that you forget stuff, making the book as a whole harder to understand. So, when you find a book you really like, try to read as much of it as you can.</p>

<p>I have a lot of friends who have only been in the US for about 8 years, and when I met them, they'd only been here for about 6. But they do perfectly fine in English, so I don't think it's because you have a different first language.</p>