I began school with their words ringing in my ears and quickly realized that indeed for most New York high-school teenagers the word Regents strikes a chord of fear in their hearts. The state-given exams are given at the end of year-long courses and they introduce students to a totally unique and difficult manner of testing. However being that I was an above average kind of student with no major difficulties in any areas I never found myself trembling in fear at the prospect of the major exams and coasted along two years of Regents with nary a ripple.

That is until that subject named math pulled me out of my complacency. I had always struggled a bit with the subject and it was definitely not my idea of a favorite pastime. However it wasn’t until 11^th grade when we hit upon trigonometry that I totally lost it. I sat in math class day in and day out with the numbers floating above my head. I didn’t grasp a single concept and couldn’t even do the simplest examples!