First Person: The Fifth Time's the Charm - Getting Past the Exit Exam

Summary

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Since English is my better subject, I felt that I did okay on that part. I had a feeling I wouldn't pass the math part. It turns out I was right: I didn't pass the math, but I found out I was only a couple of correct answers from passing. That made me feel relieved, because I thought it wouldn't be so hard to pass later on.

The night before the final test I didn't think too much about it I wasn't nervous-my mom told me to try my hardest to pass because she knew I wasn't too far from passing the previous times. I had talked to my principal and he told me about another student who hadn't passed the exam, but was doing okay.

When I sat down to take the test for the last time, it was somewhat easy in the beginning and I was breezing right through. But then I got to the second part of the exam and it became really hard. I felt like I couldn't focus that much because I just didn't know the material. I started guessing on a lot of the questions because I didn't know how to do them. But I thought about my prep class and worked to eliminate the trick answers.

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First Person: The Fifth Time's the Charm - Getting Past the Exit Exam

Editor's Note: One-third of the class of 2006 didn't pass the California High School Exit Exam. The anxiety and stress students on the bubble feel as they race against time to qualify to "walk across the stage causes some students to give up and others to buckle down. Jovan Parham, 18, is a content producer at YO! Youth Outlook Multimedia and a high school graduate looking forw...

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