Last year I was doing so well and my grade in math was a 97 until i made a bunch of small little mistakes on the test which was 60% of my grade and that dropped my average to a low B completely killing my motivation for the rest of the year causing my gpa to plummet. However this year I was doing very well and had a 95.42 in Algebra II PreAP and was very motivated and ended up getting a 74 on the test and it caused my grade to drop down to a 87.15. Thats almost a 9 point decrease! I’m losing motivation again and really want to stop this. I always get screwed at the end of the six weeks. Does this happen to any one else because I always feel like its just me. (Sorry if im complaining im just exremely upset. I had originally made this account today to ask about other topics and just mainly joint the forum so sorry if I’m spamming the forum
Short answer to your question: grades don’t "happen.: For the most part, a sudden drop in grades is a function of either:
- coursework that’s suddenly harder.
- a decrease in student effort
- some other outside circumstances… but then it would be something isolated, not part of a larger pattern.
Everyone starts every marking period with a 100%, the points are yours to lose. It’s only natural that, for the vast majority of kids, grades will start to go down a bit as you get more immersed into the material.
What’s throwing me is a test that’s worth 60% of your grade, and that wasn’t the final exam. How is that possible?
And how did “a bunch of little mistakes” account for a decrease of enough points to cause that big a decrease in your average? To pull it down that much, you would have to have scored in the low 70’s… that’s an awful lot of points to lose on carelessness, particularly for someone with a 97 average.
OK, back to what you didn’t ask: what do you do about if?
First and foremost, it’s over. There’s nothing you can do about a test you’ve already taken. So the question now becomes: How can I pull up my grade in math?
- You need to go to extra help to go over that test. You need to keep the mistakes you made on it NOT keep coming up for the rest of the year.
- YOU are in control of your own motivation. You haven't "gotten screwed", you blew one test. OK, so it's time to put in more effort, go to more extra help, do what you've got to do to pull that grade back up. If you're capable of pulling a 97 average, then you're capable of pulling your grade back up.
No excuses. The ball is back in your court. What are you going to do about it?