Chapter 5: Fives

Chapter 5: Fives

Now that part one of this three-chapter series has concluded. It’s time to move on to the next thing that really transformed me as a person.

This was none other than my bout with the College Board overlords.

If we’re being honest, what real purpose does the College Board serve? Sure, they act as the middleman between students and colleges, but how they conduct themselves is appalling. First, their entire business model is built on breeding anxiety in young people across the country. I’ll admit that I was incredibly stressed about all my tests, even though, in reality, they mean very little. Second, their tests are outrageously expensive. The system is messed up—if I want to boost my GPA and appear more competitive for college, I have to pay $100 per course, which allows me to do this.

Yet, despite all this, my journey to achieving those coveted fives began.

Pause

To set the scene, it’s essential to understand that I chose this path for myself. I decided to take five AP courses in my junior year, a decision I simultaneously regret and don’t.

Why I regret it: It sucked.

Why I don’t is a little longer. In truth, it was a beneficial experience because it taught me a lot about the kind of student I was and wanted to become. Going into the year, my organizational skills were horrendous, which didn’t help me pursue fives. This meant I had to undergo significant change to achieve my goals, which is the quintessence of positive transformation. However, this change was more powerful than I anticipated. I not only learned what it takes to be a next-level student, but I also discovered qualities within myself that I hadn’t fully embraced before.

Play

So AP week was looming, and it was time to grind. I had quite the beast ahead of me. I wasn’t terribly worried about AP Language and Composition, AP Environmental Science, or AP Spanish—I had written those off as easier tests, or in the case of Spanish, ones I’d barely pass. However, I was utterly terrified by AP Calculus BC and AP United States History. The reason? I suck at Calculus and didn’t know US History.

“How do you not know history?” my parents exclaimed when I shared my concern with them. I had no choice but to be honest: “It was my teacher’s fault.”

Now, this wasn’t entirely false. Many of my classmates that year would understand what I mean. My teacher wasn’t bad per se but rather unique in his approach to teaching history. For instance, we spent most of our time watching videos about topics rather than learning them through discourse or lecture. On top of that, the discipline in this classroom wasn’t nearly as stringent as in my previous learning environments.

So… I didn’t pay much attention.

This lack of focus came crashing down on me just weeks before the test. How did I respond to this predicament, you may ask? To that, my friend, I respond with one word: Heimler.

To the non-high schoolers who read this attempt at authorship, Heimler is the omniscient being whom millions worship. His promise of salvation saves students from failing their history courses. His students, of course, are high schoolers like myself across the nation.

And so my grind began.

As if scripted by a teenage romance novelist, I became a cliché. I began dreaming about US history. Heimler’s vibrant voice narrated my dreams as I, a Barbary pirate, threw insult after insult at the incredibly overbearing United States Navy. I pictured myself navigating the intricacies of the XYZ Affair, advising each president on the moves they would inevitably make. But in all seriousness, my life was US history that week and my relationship with Heimler grew so close that our bond was akin to that of father and son.

Finally, after a eons of intensive study, I was ready to face the melting pot. Hand in hand, Heimler and I waded into the AP exam room, ready to tackle any problem that came our way. Fortunately, I managed to score a mighty four, something I’m quite proud of after what felt like a wasted year. But I didn’t just learn the ins and outs of John C. Calhoun’s nullification bill during this time. No, I also learned a valuable lesson about determination and… well, I guess how to listen to a bald man speak for literally thirteen hours straight.

Yet, I tend to think the former is better fuel for the fire.

Through hours of studying history, I learned that active recall is quite literally a superpower—one as powerful as missing your front tooth! What I mean is that, to this day, I still understand the ins and outs of history. Learning active recall was a game-changer and I have chosen to incorporate its principles into daily life as well.

There are five main principles of active recall.

active engagement | retrieval practice | spaced repetition | feedback loop | application

For instance, imagine you’re at a party where you know zero people. Instead of just standing by the snack table and passively observing like one does, you decide to engage with people. You introduce yourself, present your dinosaur facts, and watch as people get extremely awkward. Yet, just like in studying, where you test yourself with Quizlet instead of merely reading, at parties, you build connections by actively participating, by talking, probably not about dinosaur facts. This engagement deepens your understanding of the people around you, making the interaction more meaningful.

As the night goes on, you find yourself recalling details from earlier conversations— Jim’s favorite band, Bob’s sandwich order. When you bring these later in the night, it’s like retrieving information from your brain during a study session. Each time recall, the connections become stronger, just as repeated retrieval sticks the mitochondria in your brain.at parties, this shows you’re attentive and care about the people you’re talking to, making social interaction easy.

Now, imagine your dino jokes landed, and you get invited back to similar parties. Each time you meet the same people, you recall a little more about them. Your conversations pick up where they left off, and over time, you remember more and build deeper relationships. This is spaced repetition in social interaction—reviewing your connections at increasing intervals, enhancing long-term friendships and social bonds, just as spaced repetition improves memory retention in learning.

After the party, you reflect on how your interactions went. Maybe you realize you misunderstood someone’s comment or missed a chance to share something about yourself. Next time, you correct these mistakes, adjusting your approach. This reflection and adjustment are akin to checking your answers in active recall. By learning from social missteps, you reinforce positive behavior and improve future interactions, just as feedback helps you reinforce correct information in studying.

Finally, you take what you’ve learned from these social experiences and apply it in new contexts. You might use a joke that landed well in a different group, or share advice you were given with a buddy who needs it now. Applying your social knowledge in varied situations, like using the quadratic formula, helps solidify your understanding and shows that you’ve internalized the info. It’s about adapting and using what you know to make each interaction richer and more meaningful, just as applying knowledge enhances learning.

What I learned from APUSH wasn’t just the ins and outs of our country's fascinating backstory, but the nuances of social settings, too.

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Now, what else could I have possibly learned from the other titan in this Aegean chronicle? None other than to embrace the suck—to wade through the crap before you can change the diaper.

AP Calculus BC was a beast of nature. It took nearly everything I had just to squeeze out a feeble B on my transcript that first semester. Something about it just wasn’t intuitive, despite my classmates getting it as if it were crystal clear. To me, it was murky, everglade water. Yet, that didn’t stop me from trying. I showed up, participated, and did everything I could to get a grade I could look back on with pride, to bask in that morphine-like rush of satisfaction. But that wasn’t the case. I thought I’d be crushed by this behemoth.

Then hell froze over.

Somehow, I made it through the maze of calculus, with my textbook-clad armor taking down the giant standing between me and Salvation. How did I manage that, you ask?

Heimler.

But that’s a big, fat lie. Heimler did nothing for me here. The true victor was my own perseverance. The turning point came when we took a practice AP test a few weeks before the real one. I had prepped, but it was like the YouTube equivalent of studying. It works... kind of... but not really. So, when I got my shiny 3 back from my teacher, I wasn’t shocked. But I was scared. I was barely teetering on the edge of passing, and that was not the security blanket I wanted going into hell week—the week before the AP exam.

At this peak of panic, my math teacher hit me with a phrase that still echoes in my head to this day: “I have never seen someone go from a 3 to a 5.”

Predictably, this lit a fire under me. My work ethic, which was usually plagued by laziness, suddenly woke up. I truly began to grind and hated every second of it. But during this unholy slog, I found an appreciation for math and hard work. Even though I felt dumb half the time, I became genuinely invested in what I was doing. Sorting through Lagrange error bounds, trudging hip-deep through optimization—it actually became fun. Like I said, I embraced the suck, and by sucking at exceptional levels, I got ready for the test.

As you know (since it’s the title of this chapter), I got a 5. And that sensation of bliss is something I still feel every time I think about it. I could go on about why I learned this lesson and why it matters, but I’m a lazy writer, and I think the point has been made. People either get it or they don’t. You have to like running to finish a marathon. You have to love The Lord of the Rings to get through Return of the King. You have to embrace the suck to become the master of it.

In summation, you need to learn to love the grind if you want results. That’s how I lost weight my freshman year, too.

I guess you could say I mastered sucking long before I even realized it.

I am the panther of suck.