I always thought I was good at grammar simply because I was always correcting my parents’. However, after taking a diagnostic SAT writing section, I was clearly deluding myself. I was doubtful at how much I could learn under a professor at Dr. Li’s summer camp. I mean, how much could I really take in if I can clearly communicate my thoughts to others already?

Although the teacher’s exercises seemed ridiculous at first, I soon realized I had learned the wrong grammar tactics when I first learned English due to colloquial sayings. I was able to quickly fix these mistakes in my grammar and it definitely showed in my writing as well. My teacher let us know that it isn’t “stupid” to not know these grammar lessons especially since a lot of people botch proper phrases and shape them into our 21st century language now. Staying a few minutes after class to ask questions was also a huge help and my teacher was more than willing to oblige. I went from a 680 to a 760 in writing and it’s all thanks to Dr. Li’s classes.

I was never good at writing essays, especially under a limited amount of time. I could never express my thoughts clearly and always wrote in an awkward tone. Getting a 7 on my first essay really shook my world as I realized my writing isn’t as good as I think it is to others.

Dr. Thomson unlike other writing teachers gave me clear precise comments on how to fix this in my writing. I was doubtful at first but I soon saw my writing scores improve, originally getting 7s and finally getting 10s (out of 12). It’s amazing how much you can improve within a span of 2 weeks, but Dr. Thomson’s remarkable notes allowed me to gather my thoughts properly and attack the essay prompt straightforwardly.

He allowed me to imagine my reader’s mindset and write in an engaging manner so that the grader would not get bored and be able to follow my line of logic in 5-10 minutes, which is how long they usually take to grade these essays. There is simply not enough time to add decorative and lavish details in 25 minutes. Although it seems long which is how I imagined it at first, you are soon quickly mistaken and it is a definite lapse in judgement. After seeing my writing improve immensely, I was grateful to Dr. Li’s classes because the class packets along with the vocabulary lists allowed me to get the score I wanted.