Unanswered [1] | Urgent [0]
  

Home / Essays   % width Posts: 4


Situation where I was not successful ; Personal Essay (8th grade portfolio)


Cowfin521 1 / 1  
Feb 20, 2013   #1
The prompt is "Tell us about a situation where you have not been sucessful and what you have learned from the experience"
Hey, I am an 8th grader trying to write a personal essay for my 8th grade portfolio. I am not a very skilled writer so I came here for some help.

The problem with my essay was that the formatting made it too repetitive and according to my peers and my essay was not very compelling. I need advice on how to make it less repetitive and to make it more compelling or just general improvement

Thanks.


"There have been many situations where I have not been successful. You will not succeed 100% of the time; no one will. However, most people will just whine, complain, give excuses, put blame on others and they won't accept that they did not accomplish what they wanted. When you are not successful it is because you made a mistake. While it is sometimes not your fault, most of the time there could be something that you could have done to prevent your "failure". Actually not succeeding does not mean failing. You only fail when you give up and don't work harder to improve yourself. If you don't give up you don't fail.

A time when I wasn't successful was when I underestimated a math quiz and received a terrible grade. At first I was really upset and furious at the same time. Naturally, I responded by creating many unnecessary excuses about the teacher making the quizzes too difficult and not teaching the concept well enough. I also said that the problems that were on the quiz were not what we reviewed in class. The reason I was so flabbergasted and overreacted was that I never studied or needed to work hard on math last year because it was not challenging. I did not accept the fact that I screwed up and blamed it on someone else. For several days I was pondering about this situation because I had never done this poorly before. It was starting to become overwhelming. Then, I had a sudden epiphany. I realized that the reason I did not get a good score was because I screwed up, I did not study and I did not work hard. It was completely my fault and in my head I said "This shouldn't be happening, you can do better than this. You have to refocus and work harder". After this incident my quiz scores became higher and I often received A's. Every Thursday I study for an extended period of time to make sure I understand the week's concept and to make sure I am not confused on anything. Every time I am unsuccessful, it motivates me to do better next time. My mindset is that "I did not succeed because my performance was inadequate." Instead of complaining I review my flaws and think about how I could improve myself next time. Often times when I get an A on a test, I still make tiny errors that could have been fixed. I find out what I did wrong and make sure it doesn't happen a second time.

This applies to other situations as well. It is not limited to academic activities. When professional gaming teams lose a match they will often have a group meeting discussing why they lost. They will identify their mistakes and fix them next time. Even after victories the team will discuss what strategies worked and what did not so that they can play better the next time.

I still make mistakes and do not succeed from time to time. Nobody is perfect but that's okay because every time you don't succeed, you can analyze your flaws and fix them so you improve next time. Mistakes are wakeup calls that alert you when you need to reform yourself. For example I got a poor score on my history quiz. However I realized that I did not review the chapter enough and it was a last minute study. After reviewing my mistakes, I decided to study more and not at the last minute. I have learned a lot from this experience. I learned that making mistakes and not succeeding is very common and natural. I learned that you can complain, whine and do nothing with your mistakes or make the best of them by using them to better yourself.

"
Kitsumi 4 / 97 16  
Feb 20, 2013   #2
Why did you put quotation marks around your essay? You don't need to.

In essays, do not use "you", "your", or any variations of 2nd person pronouns. Reword the entire sentence, or substitute with "one" or "he or she". Such as, "When one is not successful it is because he or she made a mistake."

Also, you should not use contractions in essays.

When you say professional gaming teams, are you talking athletics? Or professional video game teams?

There are some grammar issues, do you want me to point them out too?
OP Cowfin521 1 / 1  
Feb 20, 2013   #3
Yes please, I understand my grammar isn't perfect :)
I'm talking about professional video game teams like league of legends.
Thank you for your feedback
Kitsumi 4 / 97 16  
Feb 21, 2013   #4
Alright. For grammar, can you change the "you" to whatever you want them to be, before I start? That way I don't have to correct your grammar regarding those nouns and sentences. Or at least, if you make mistakes while correcting, I'll catch those.


Home / Essays / Situation where I was not successful ; Personal Essay (8th grade portfolio)
Writing
Editing Help?
Fill in one of the forms below to get professional help with your assignments:

Graduate Writing / Editing:
GraduateWriter form ◳

Best Essay Service:
CustomPapers form ◳

Excellence in Editing:
Rose Editing ◳

AI-Paper Rewriting:
Robot Rewrite ◳