How to Write an AP World Essay by Lindsey

How to Write an AP World Essay by Lindsey - July 2019 Scholarship Essay

Darkness hangs over my room in the early hours of morning. My heavy eyes beg for sleep, slipping closed at any moment they can get. It is quiet all around—all around except inside my mind. My mind refuses to cooperate with the exhaustion of the rest of my body, flinging doubt after doubt at the forefront of my thoughts. Every time I feel the pull of sleep, dragging me down into its depths—Wack! Another doubt hits the edges of my consciousness, and I am abruptly yanked back into reality.
It is the summer before senior year of high school. Worry eats away at me as I lie in bed, worry over a difficult class I am taking the next year: AP English Literature and Composition—a mouthful, I know. The memories of what others have said about the class repeat over and over in my mind: the teacher is the worst; you cannot use any form of “to be” in your essays; you have to read three books per week; even the smart kids drop the class. I don’t think I can do this. It’ll be too much—I won’t be cut out for the class.
As I think this, another memory stirs at the back of my mind. Two years earlier, I had thought I would not be cut out for another class: AP World History. Part of the class involved writing essays in short amounts of time; however, writing a coherent essay in 45 minutes was like pulling teeth for me. When we got our first in-class essay, I had stared at the prompt in front of me, trying to think quickly. 'C’mon, Lindsey, think of a thesis. Think of a thesis!' I thought to myself. Unfortunately, my brain did not cooperate, nor did the time. The longer I could not think of anything, the more frustrated I became, and the more frustrated I became, the harder it was to think of anything. It was a terrible cycle. Finally, I scrambled at the last minute to come up with a thesis and rushed through a body paragraph, but my hand was aching and my brain already dead and—oh no, the bell was ringing. I still wasn’t finished, so I wrote even faster, and everyone was leaving, and my teacher was coming toward me, and—I had to stop writing. The unfinished essay stared up at me, and I stared back disdainfully.
'No doubt,' I think to myself in bed, 'I will have similar troubles in this AP Literature course'; yet, thinking about AP World now, I almost smile. Indeed, in the moment, an unfinished essay felt like the end of the world, but now, I see this obstacle only as proof of my hard work to get around this difficulty, a source of pride for me. It was not easy overcoming this obstacle; after I failed that first essay, I at first could not do anything but ruminate on all I had done wrong: I was not writing fast enough; my evidence was weak; I barely had any analysis; my thesis was bad. The negativity clouded my vision; all I could see were mistakes, mistakes, and more mistakes.
But negativity could not rain down on me forever because, burning underneath all this anger was one single thought: I want to do well in this class. With time, the anger and sadness evaporated. That single thought, however, continued to burn, pushing me to study harder, to write faster, to do better. Over the course of the year, I continued to practice timed writes in class and at home. Each time, I learned new techniques to write faster while still pulling out a pretty good essay. The scores started going up, which made me feel more confident in my writing, which made my scores go up even more. It was a much nicer cycle. When the day of the AP exam came, I finished all three essays with time to spare. Not only could I get my essays done faster, but they were better too; I ended up getting a 5 on the exam.
So, sure, AP Literature would have its difficulties just like AP World. But, when had I let any obstacle stop me from getting an education? Learning and doing well in school are important to me. I want to learn. I want to do well. So, I am willing to work around any obstacles that come my way if it means learning. That, for me, represents a true passion for education.
Finally, the thoughts quiet in my head, and sleep comes over me.