Poetry Study Goals

• Reading the poem sentence by sentence not line by line
• Figuring out the who, what, where, and when of the poem
• After reading the poem, paraphrasing it instead of jumping straight into the questions.
• Analyzing the poem as a whole not as individual lines
• Remembering to read through it multiple times, so I understand it fully
• Reviewing basic literary terms to better analyze the poems 

I tend to get caught up in the details of the poem and therefore when I am done reading it I don’t actually understand what it is talking about. This is what happened to me in the practice questions, and therefore I have dedicated my first five goals to this. In addition knowing the literary terms would help me answer and understand the questions better. 

Diagnostic Test Reflection

Taking the diagnostic test lowered my confidence of my English ability from a 8/10 to about a 4/10. The multiple-choice questions were a breeze but the essay questions I had a lot of trouble answering.  There were many more poems than I thought there would be on the test, which I have a hard time interpreting so this was frustrating for me. Also the third essay question was frustrating for me because I could not remember how a change in a character was a frightening process in Jane Eyre, which was the only book I had read from the list. I was not surprised that the multiple-choice passages asked for the tone, speaker, and imagery because these are common questions in an English section. These are the questions I felt most confident with because in British Literature we discussed these aspects in most book or short stories we read.  Overall the diagnostic test was extremely difficult for me but I look forward to learning how to approach and solve these types of questions in AP English next year.