Christopher Columbus DBQ Essay

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Why you Don’t Need to be Smart to Get Good Grades Sophomore year, AP U.S. History. My class was writing a Document Based Question (DBQ) over Christopher Columbus and the Age of Exploration. (A document based question is an essay where you use factual evidence given in the form of documents to write an essay). I knew nothing! My mind was blanker than the vacuum of space itself. So, I told a story, but every single shred of lead that came off of my pencil was garbage. It was F worthy. I thought to myself “It’s Christopher Columbus, How do you not know anything about his explorations!” I drew from common stories of mutiny on the ship or reasons for why he decided to take his trip, but none of which I had ever formally learned. I stood up and …show more content…

Now, of course I had APUSH at the end of the day. So it left me plenty of time to think about and become exhausted over the dread that was building up inside of me for just receiving back a test. I couldn’t focus in any of my classes, and didn’t think about anything other than “I can’t believe I failed.” The instant I walked into the classroom my knees almost buckled to the point where I collapsed. All I could do is sit in the corner with my hands on my head as Ms. Bradley said “Some of you did amazing on this essay! Others not some much, those who didn’t do as well need to see me so that we can talk about it.” I just knew that it was directed towards me, and the more I heard people react to their good grades on the essay the worse the butterflies in my stomach just increase in horror of my grade compared to the rest of the class. As Ms. Bradley walked up to my seat she set my paper down upside down making sure that nobody else saw my grade. All that did is make my situation even worse as she obviously didn’t want anyone else seeing my bad grade. As I turned the paper over my hand wouldn’t stop shaking to the point where I couldn’t read the grade on the front. Yet, when I finally calmed myself down to see the grade I was astounded. I had received a 95% on the paper. I knew nothing, and I got an A! How could that have been