Kilroy's Guide to the Art of Effort

                I couldn’t think of any real themes from this week, so I decided to write something completely different.  Now I know some people will find this hard to hear, but doing well doesn’t always require a lot of effort.  What it does require, however, is effort in the right places.  I know some people have stereotypes to live up to, and some people have parents that won’t let things be, but honestly, twenty pages of B.S. is, in the end, no better than two pages of clear, straight-to-the-point writing.  There were people writing essays on the summer reading, and I can only guess that the big reason is that they were so pumped up to write their twenty pages of B.S. that they didn’t realize the directions told them to do something completely different.  With essays I see people running up to grab more paper every few seconds, while I got 100% on at least half of my APUSH essays last year with only two, maybe two and a half pages of writing.  On top of that, I rarely studied for more than ten minutes (that’s total, in the entire period before a test).  I got an A on most of the tests.  Putting effort into extra work isn’t going to get you anywhere; putting effort into the work that needs to be done will.  When someone asks, “What major event happened on December 7^th, 1941,” you don’t need to go off talking about how Hitler’s surprise strike in the Ardennes influenced the Japanese plans in the Pacific.  All you need to say is, “The Japanese used carrier-launched aircraft to attack U.S. installations on the island of Oahu.” Shoot, you could probably get by saying, “The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.” You don’t need to talk about the buildup or the success or the effects, you just need to say what happened.  Extra effort only wastes time.  I got a 5 in APUSH by putting the right effort in the right places.  Anyone can do the same in any class from "Intro to Shapes" to Calc 3.