Midterms & Procrastination

[Jacob]

For the last week, I've been telling myself I am going to study- I am going to go home and open those books and learn everything for the midterms so I can get some decent grades. Or at least I'm going to find a way to cheat. However, I always make excuses for myself. I'll grab a snack first, I'll watch one episode of this TV show, I'll talk to this friend for only 20 minutes, etc. Next thing I know it's 11 o'clock and I just go to bed.

For the 7 midterms I've taken this week, I've probably studied a total of 15 minutes. My parents think I've been studying nonstop all day, when in reality I've just been wasting time browsing the internet, watching TV, etc. I have a terrible procrastination problem- and it's been going on for a while, but it's gotten worse in the last 2 months.

I haven't done a single homework assignment in about a month. I take the 0 in the classes where homework has a low weight in the grade, and I copy answers for classes that have a higher weight. My economics teacher doesn't even collect the homework, she has us switch papers and puts the answers on the board and then asks us for our grades. I just copy it and tell her I got a 100. In Geometry, homework counts for about 5% of the quarter grade, so I don't even bother. I hope I'm not the only one with this problem?

I think throughout all my years in school, I've studied for less than 5 tests overall, so not studying isn't something new to me. I've spent more time cheating than studying, and it's worked out. I felt the need to study for the midterms though, since my quarter 2 grade reflected my procrastinating- all B's and C's. There's only 3 reasons I care about my grades.

1) I don't want to fail it and not get the credit/have to retake it
2) My parents are grade-obsessed and expect to get all A's from me. I got their expectations too high in previous grades (even tho I literally got A's without doing shit) and now I'm dealing with the consequences.
3) i want to get accepted into college because while I agree the school system is fucked up and useless, I still want to go to college. Whether I like it or not, I'm still more likely to get a better job.

Anyways, I'm getting off topic (Sorry for the long post) I have midterm results back from all my classes except my woodworking elective and my science.

Economics CP- B (200 questions with only 85 minutes to take it, but she let me drink coffee so I was able to stay awake)

Geometry Honors- C+ (works for me, I've slept in this class every day since December and only studied about 10 minutes, I thought I would do worse. I cheated a little bit on this test. I wasn't able to get a copy of the test and have answers prepared, but I did hide some equations taped to the inside of my pen. Only helped me with a few problems though)

Spanish 2 CP- B (once again, works for me. I never pay attention in this class, I just talk with my friends)

Civics CP F (This I am shocked about, I thought I did pretty well on this one. I wasn't even close to a D either, it was 50%. My teacher loves doing vague, tricky questions, but I still thought I did a lot better. Oh well. Fortunately my teacher doesn't know how to use powerschool [the online grading system my school uses] and the test only counts for 7% of my semester final grade instead of 20%. I will not be pointing out this mistake)


And lastly, in English I got a B+. There are so many stories to tell about this class and the teacher, so I'll probably make a different topic about it some time in the future since I'm talking about Midterms on this topic. But to make a long story short about the midterm- the questions on the midterm were vague and had nothing to do with what we learned BUT she left the answers to 1/3 of the test on her desk....so it made it really easy to cheat on that part of the test. I didn't even have to sneak into her room and look for the test. She literally left the door open to her room, and the answer key to one third of the test right on her desk. Plus she wasn't watching us while we took the test so I easily copied off other people. Easy as fuck.


I guess I'll update this post when I get results back on science & woodworking. But yea that pretty much summarizes my life this past week. I'm so glad I found this forum where I can talk about how much I hate the system without getting attacked by the brain dead school fanatics. Peace

[James Comey]

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[James Comey]

If you didn't get that, I'll explain it the best way I can: simply put, when you procrastinate, you're choosing what you want know over what you want later. This is basically present bias. You have to find a way to agree with your future self (that same self that will be turning in that homework, for example) on what to do. It's not really about time management or will power.