<p>I'm applying to a boarding school (not saying which) and one of the application questions are what do you find challenging in your day to day life. I'm not sure how to answer this question... How would you approach it? What would be your thinking process for this question?</p>
<p>(This involves drawing circles on a piece of paper. My recommendation would be to do that using a computer, instead of by hand - makes it much easier to work with.)</p>
<p>Page 1: Draw a 2-inch circle in the center of a blank piece of paper. Scatter another six or seven (or eight or twelve) 1 1/2" circles randomly around the first one. Write your essay topic in the large circle. Write each idea you can think of in the smaller circles - so each circle has one idea. Continue adding circles until you run out of ideas.</p>
<p>Page 2: Copy page one onto page two. For each of the small circles, write down under it a list of the things you can think of to say about that idea. If you can’t think of anything for one or more of the circles, then don’t write anything for those.</p>
<p>Page 3: Carry over from page two your essay topic (the big circle in the center) and those “idea” circles that have the most stuff written about them. Leave the other ones behind. Then elaborate on the thoughts you’ve already written.</p>
<p>Page 4: Turn the best parts of page 3 into an outline. Each circle can be a different paragraph. Come up with a topic sentence for it; then use the ideas you listed as the different sentences in that paragraph.</p>
<p>Or, one of the circles might be your whole paper, if you have enough ideas written underneath it.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Essay topic - “What are the ingredients of a meaningful life?”</p>
<p>Page 1 - Ideas include food, family, friends, pets.</p>
<p>Page 2 - As you start to write stuff under each circle, you realize you have a lot to say about food, but not much to say abut pets.</p>
<p>Page 3 - Leave pets out and carry over food, family, & friends to page 3. Write more about each.</p>
<p>Page 4 - Make food, family, & friends the three main paragraphs of your outline. Your ideas are already down on paper (on page 3), so it’s almost already written!</p>
<p>So, locococoa123, you’ll start on page one by writing down everything you can think of that you find challenging, even if you think it sounds dumb. Just get it all down on paper. Then, as you work through the pages, you’ll figure out which of your ideas is actually worth writing about. The really important thing is to start by writing down every response you can think of. Guaranteed, you’ll find something that works!</p>
<p>thank you! :)</p>