Hunting for Bonus Points by Sohaib

Hunting for Bonus Points by Sohaib - December 2017 Scholarship Essay

In school, many prioritize succeeding on projects. However, as with any high grades, attaining them is a challenge. So, students will do anything: starting on the project early, staying up late at night to work on it, and even going as far as plagiarizing another person's work. As a junior in high school, I'm guilty of trying all of the methods listed before and many more. However, one stands out the most: hunting for bonus points.
During biology class in freshmen year of high school, my class was given the task of collecting 20 flowers. However, we were awarded bonus points if we collected more (five extra flowers were the maximum). Many students were desperate, doing anything to get flowers: buying them, stealing them, and even growing them. However, I am a very stingy person, so I did not want to spend any money, I have morals, so I did not even think about attempting to steal any, and I knew I did not have the patience to grow them. With these things in mind, I did the logical thing: looked for them.
Throughout many weeks, I collected as many flowers as I could. Soon enough, I reached the minimum of 20. As I sighed a breath of relief, taking pride in my "accomplishment", my dad advised me to find five more, to get the bonus points. I did what any lazy student would do: roll my eyes. However, I decided to collect the flowers anyways.
Before I knew it, I was in class, holding onto my box of 25 flowers, ready to turn it in. I felt extremely confident, gallantly handing it to the teacher, so she could grade it.
A few minutes later, my teacher called me up; she had graded it. Upon receiving the box and returning to my desk, I opened it, seeking for the rubric, which had my grade on it; my jaw dropped. Red ink lines scoured the paper, covering it like a plague. I inspected the rubric, carefully. As it turns out, I had misidentified many of the flowers, so I had lost a significant number of points. However, my final grade on the project was still an A. How? That was exactly what I wondered. Upon closer inspection, I realized that I was awarded bonus points for turning extra flowers in. Those extra points made up for the ones I had lost. Those bonus points outweighed the points that I had lost. And from that moment on, getting every bit of bonus points became my ultimate strategy on any school project- all because of some advice given to me by my father, whom I still give gratitude to till this day.