Personal statement-- my stories of learning Mathematics

The place where I learnt something very important to my personal growth was at the A level centre where I studied my IGCSE examinations. This short essay will focus on my experience with Mathematics when I was in Grade 10.

My experience of a mock exam

According to the Cambridge Assessment International Education, Asians perform well in IGCSE Mathematic examinations. The majority of students in my class, including me, always advocate that IGCSE Mathematic examination is easier compared with the Chinese alternative because students need to in Chinese alternative. During the lesson, I used to feel extremely bored and spend the whole course session daydreaming, which caused me to omit some important formulae. After nearly one-month, we were given a mock examination. My exam result was average rather than excellent which was disappointing. Thus, I liaised with the high achieving students and found that they paid full attention to listening to the teacher during class.

From then on, I had previewed and reviewed each mathematic chapter gradually to make sure I could master mathematic formulae clearly. But I still had a problem which was I was too careless. Here is one of my stories.

My experience of Euclid Contest

Three months after the mock examination, I took part in a mathematic contest called Euclid at school which was a little bit difficult because no multiple choices in it. Due to my inattention, I even forgot that our teacher had said there were no multiple choices. In addition, I did not read the question correctly because I read so fast which meant I misunderstood some questions and answered them incorrectly. The results showed that I got 68 out of 100 and the international top 25% required 69 marks.

Summary

This contest experience taught me a number of lessons. First, it encouraged me to study harder in the mathematics field as questions in the contest were difficult. Second, I have developed a good learning habit which is reviewing and previewing. Finally, this experience made me try the best and I realized I should be more attentive and improve my concentration and motivation if I want to fulfil my potential.