<p>B+ on your first CAT paper?</p>
<p>I wish I could have gotten more than the one B+ I got towards the end of CAT, when I finally got what they were asking of me in my writing. This is my personal advice.</p>
<p>How many hours would you say you spent on the paper? Did you read ALL the readings and connect them and analyze them critically? This will get rid of most "gaps" between all the stuff you've been learning. Eventually, all of these concepts come together in ways you probably haven't thought of yet. </p>
<p>One of the biggest lessons you learn in CAT is analyzing and studying words and concepts critically in order to fully understand them and consequently, effectively communicate their meaning in a paper. That is: looking at the bigger picture, the CONTEXT: the many many many dimensions and layers of concepts that are so freakin' complex, that simplifying them (as the dictionary does) strips them of their meaning. </p>
<p>For my papers, I did this by brainstorming my thoughts and knowledge of the paper's topic/question on sheets of plain white paper. For each paper, I had about 10-15 pages filled, front and back, with my scrambled thoughts. I circled things, highlighted things with different colors, connected things with lines. In the end, I had a semi-organized visual of what I know, my opinions and analysis, what I'm trying to argue, how I may go about doing that, how I connect and group certain facts, and finally, how I will structure my thesis statement and final paper, paragraph by paragraph, sometimes sentence by sentence and word for word, in a way that makes my argument (thesis) super clear and believable because of the flow of my thoughts on paper.</p>
<p>You should realize that some words, like culture..art...race.., are extremely complex and difficult to understand (and write about) if you don't put in enough effort into understanding them. Ask critical questions, have an open mind, do independent research, go to office hours especially when you don't think you understand something well enough. </p>
<p>Also, try to figure out how you work best. I wish I could have done it when I first started CAT. My mind is always buzzing with random thoughts, and putting them on paper helps me organize them.</p>
<p>I'm just babbling some lessons that I learned, but yeah. Try to have an open mind about what you learn in CAT. I hated it at first, but in the end I was glad I put in more effort into trying to understand stuff beyond the surface.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you!</p>