The Math Test

Alex Hamilton was an eighteen-year-old teenager who lived at Stonybrook, Oregon and enjoyed fishing, camping, hiking, and generally anything outdoors-related. He found the outdoors to be extremely fun, enthralling, exhilarating, and practical. He loved the outdoors and how beautiful the sun, sky, and clouds were. He immensely enjoyed going outside to experience the clean, fresh air of the outdoors and loved the feeling of roasted marshmallow and chocolate in his mouth while in the forest. Alex Hamilton had brown hair, was five foot ten inches, and was quite thin as he loved exercising as part of his daily routine. Alex Hamilton was athletic and studious, a good combination of traits for a student. He lived at 1905 West Street, and lived in a townhome connected to other townhomes of similar size. His home was rather large and expensive but met every last one of his and his parents’ needs. Alex’s home was beautiful, large, and well-built, so Alex overall felt very good about how his house was like and how it appeared to other students. His home was wonderfully made and had a quaint white fence encircling his front lawn, which was manicured daily by his dad’s lawnmower. Alex was satisfied with his appearance, mental and physical abilities, and home. His school was even more interesting.

His school was named Dandelion High School and had a beautiful front lawn and a driveway and parking lot that could fit tons and tons of people. His school’s student body was thirteen-hundred students large and came from all walks of life, some of them being gay or straight, black or white, and male or female. The student body was known for being obsessed with football and cheerleading but was also known for its dedication to academics. Dandelion High School was beautifully constructed, staffed with experienced and intelligent teachers, and three stories tall. Dandelion High School was a big, beautiful, and large school in population and physical size. Dandelion High was amazing for its perfect location at Stonybrook, Oregon. Everyone in the city could come and learn at an affordable tax-reduced price. Dandelion High School was wonderfully designed in the interior with large, spacious and clean floors, and lockers with unbreakable locks. Dandelion High School was so clean and amazing that the students loved the smell and sight of the school’s walls, hallways, and classrooms. The students loved being there to learn, have fun, and interact. Dandelion High was amazing for its quality.

Alex Hamilton was fortunate enough to go to this beautifully and intricately made school to learn about English, chemistry, sports, and history. His favorite subject, however, was history class. He enjoyed history for its detailed account on people’s lives and objective narration of a place’s history. Alex loved history because he felt like he was learning something new and interesting. He found the saying, “Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it” to be true because he had a very certain gut feeling that history was crucial to understanding not only the past, but the present and future. Alex Hamilton loved learning about different people, places, cultures, and events that have happened in life. History class was like heaven to him because of its importance in everyday life. He thoroughly enjoyed learning more and more about people, exchanges of power, and kings and queens. History had so much to offer, and Alex loved the feeling of knowledge being poured into his brain. Alex loved history class because of its universal nature. Every person, place, and thing has a history behind it. Alex loved learning about the details of a person’s life. History was very interesting to Alex.

On the opposite end of the spectrum regarding what subjects Alex liked and hated was math. Alex found exponents, radicals, fractions, numerators, denominators, and generally anything math-related to be highly irritating. Something about the rigid and unrealistic model that math gave of the world made Alex want to puke. He found addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to be boring, and trigonometry to be foreign in every way, shape, and form. Alex disliked math’s rigid and unforgiving nature, and found history’s more practical and useful nature to be much more superior to math. Alex highly disliked math because he found it to be impractical, boring, useless, and unrealistic. Math was a subject reserved for counting, numbering, and quantification, not teaching. He found math to make people’s lives more difficult as well as making people too reliant on technology. Math was just boring to Alex. There really was no other way around it. History was superior since it was purposeful, amazing, and detailed. Math was such a bore.

Besides academics, Alex loved to hangout with friends. He had four main close friends, Tim Ryan, David Walker, Aldridge Mount, and Chris Wallace. His friends loved to hangout before school, during the times between classes, and during lunch. His friends would often talk about how their classes were going, what the latest fad in clothing style was, and how much they loved food. In fact, they talked about food so much because they as a group loved it. Tim’s favorite food was hamburgers, David’s was chili, Aldridge’s was nachos, and Chris’s was mashed potatoes with gravy. Alex loved pizza and ordered pepperoni pizza every day from the school cafeteria. He loved the feeling you got when you ate something so delicious after something stressful, like a test or quiz. Lunch was the group’s favorite time since they got to eat until they felt full. Alex Hamilton loved eating and would do anything to have enough money to eat. His friends were supportive of each other, and often hung out and talked about anything and everything. They loved talking about sports, their favorite subject, and food. They were your typical high schoolers.

Alex was part of the “middle” when it came to popularity, so he found himself both the bully and being the bullied. Alex Hamilton would often pick on poor students, students he thought were unattractive, and the loners. Alex Hamilton only bullied because he did it when he was forced to, like trying to impress his friends, or trying to move up the social ladder. Alex Hamilton found his position in the school’s popularity ranking to be mediocre. He wasn’t particularly too popular, but was also more popular than many. His bullies were John Scargoat and Raymond Dollar, two kids who picked on Alex because of his interest in history and middle-income background. Alex was bullied by John and Raymond occasionally, but found his confidence as a weapon against these two bullies. Alex was very strong on the inside, and would use his self-reassurance to his advantage, often making John and Raymond disappear. Alex Hamilton was confident, determined, and strong. Bullies didn’t threaten him or his existence. He could fend off those who picked on him with ease.

Whenever school ended at four in the afternoon, Alex would go to his mom’s car in the parking lot and get in, heading towards home. Alex had a kind mother and a hardworking father. His mom’s name was Grace and his father’s name was Matthew. Both of them loved each other very much and would often share anecdotes as to how much they loved each other, how they met, how they envisioned the future, etc. Alex’s parents were very kind, loving, and understanding towards Alex because of their kind temperaments and carefree attitude towards life. Alex’s parents were brunettes and would often walk their dog or attend to their garden, making life much more interesting and valuable. Alex’s parents were considerate, educated, and kind which made Alex himself proud of his family. His parents admired Alex’s dedication to improving his grades and understanding what math was about. His parents were very kind and loving.

At home, Alex would play frisbee in the backyard, walk the dog, or draw cartoons on paper. His home life was very fun because Alex came from a rich and comfortable life and had all the basic necessities at his fingertips. For breakfast, he would eat a sausage, egg, and orange juice, and for lunch he’d eat spaghetti. He loved food and found it to be extremely relaxing, comforting, and fattening. Alex’s home life was very comfortable because all Alex had to do was read his favorite books, watch television, or run on the treadmill. Being born in a middle class family had its ups and downs, but monetarily, Alex was well off. His home life was comfortable as were he and his parents. The only thing in his life he didn’t like was math.

Math class at Dandelion High School was headed by Mr. Hollings who spoke about algebra, trigonometry, calculus, and geometry. Mr. Hollings disliked having to teach about thirty students per class and wished that his math classes were a bit smaller. Mr. Hollings disliked having to teach too many students at once so he complained to the principal, Ms. LaBand which yielded no results. Mr. Hollings was a very dedicated, correct, and strict teacher. His tests and quizzes were very difficult and involved lots of memorization and an ability to apply those formulas correctly. Mr. Hollings admired his class’s ability to learn quickly and correctly. Mr. Hollings found teaching to be a difficult, demanding, yet rewarding job. It was always interesting to see who would get a one-hundred on his dreaded Algebra 2 tests. The first one would be coming up in about a week.

Ms. Lavender taught biology and loved being able to explain to students in a concise, accurate, and logical manner why the cell was the basic unit of life and not the atom. Ms. Lavender was tall, blonde, and had glasses. She loved elucidating concepts such as mitosis and meiosis and found it rewarding to finally see a concept click with a student. Her teaching method was based on rote memorization which involved lots of drilling quizzes, more quizzes, and of course, more quizzes. Ms. Lavender loved being able to teach well and when she found out another student finally understood what she was talking about, she let out a sigh of relief. Ms. Lavender’s class was Alex’s favorite, and to see Ms. Lavender’s sweet and kind face made Alex so happy. He was her teacher’s pet. Ms. Lavender taught very well and made sure everything was as simple and concise as possible. Her schoolwork was very demanding, though.

After finding out from Mr. Hollings that a math test was only a week away, Alex went home and began studying his flashcards. Addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, percentages, fractions, radicals, exponents, and variables were all fair game on Mr. Hollings’ math test this coming week. Mr. Hollings made sure his tests were fair, accurate, and reliable, so it was up to Alex to maintain those stellar and hard-earned grades he had in math. Alex studied and studied and studied until his mind was numb. He felt like he could do well on his math test. It was just a matter of time, luck, and effort. 

Alex loved studying and learned that he had scored a ninety on the math quiz, earning him an A. He was ecstatic and went home telling his parents about the good news. Alex knew his classes were difficult compared to the rest of the students’ schoolwork at Dandelion High School. Alex loved being able to draw well, camp well, and now he could say he understood math. He was proud of himself and decided to move on and focus on other areas of his life.