...that one teacher

We all have that one teacher who continues to throw new information at their students until the very last day before the final. Leaving no room for students to implemet the material, debunk any misconceptions, and convert the topic into their long term memories. For me, that person is my French teacher.

I have had the same french teacher from the beginning of my journey in French 1 all the way up to my final steps of high school French in AP. At the beginning of every year (without fail), she provides the lovely disclaimer that she will continue to teach us new material until the day of the final. What this normally means is that we will get a last minute lesson on grammar or culture. But not this year...

This year, Madame assigned my french class 4 chapters of material to learn the week before the final. I originally was fine with this because it was mainly just a review of all of the tenses that were taught to us in French 3 and 4. But today (the final is in two days!!), Madame decided to bring to our attention that we would have to learn all of the vocabulary terms in the first eight chapters of the book. "Oh, great," I thought. As this was, in fact, the best news that I had received all week (that sentence is bleeding sarcasm by the way)!

So, I did what all other high schoolers do when they are worried about their grades during finals season. I went to the Roger Hub final calculator. My semester grade currently is a 96.7, the final is worth 20% of my grade, and I'd like to end with at least a 92%. And as it turns out, I need to get a 73.2% on the final.

My final is mainly multiple choice, but there is a written portion. So I knew I would need to know a considerable amount of vocabulary in order to write in French. And in the multiple choice section there is a French to English section and vice versa. Ideally, the translating in multiple choice questions should be easy. But with all of the false congnates and words that don't even remotely resemble what they are in English, I know I'm going to need to know all of the vocab (*panics!*).

All I have left to do is figure out is how to maximize my short term memory, so that it fits all of this new information (and also to stop blogging about what I need to do and actually do it). Wish me luck!