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Kate Miller

Professor Babcock

ENGL 138T

21 January 2024

I Believe That Hard Work Pays Off

Voice Thread Link: https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/26411893

I believe that hard work pays off. When I was in fifth grade, my elementary school

librarian made an announcement that our school would be hosting the Battle of the Books for

fourth and fifth graders. My friends and I had participated when we were in fourth grade but had

unfortunately lost. A year later, I and those same three girls decided to try again to win the Battle.

The general idea was that students were given a list of ten books to read, and one night, in my

elementary gymnasium, all the students would answer questions about the books. My teammates

and I decided our team’s name would be the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Readers,” and we began to read the

books for the competition.

The books were regular chapter books, no more than 200 pages each; after all, we were in

fifth grade. Every spare minute I had, I would pore over the books. During our team meetings,

we would ask each other sample questions about the books and review the books’ titles and

authors. Not a day went by leading up to the Battle where I didn’t either read or study a book. By

the time the Battle came, I had read all ten books six times. Another teammate had read them

four times. Our whole team had worked and read for hours to have the best chance possible of

winning the Battle.

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The night of the Battle, each group had a proctor sitting with them to monitor the

competition. Our proctor was nice enough to tally on a separate sheet of paper how many

questions we had missed in total. We got all the questions right except for two.

I don’t know if I’ll ever feel suspense like the suspense of waiting for the librarians to

count the scores to see who won. All four of us were on the edge of our seats. We had tried our

hardest to prepare for the competition, and when it came down to it, we hoped that only missing

two questions would secure the victory.

Then the moment came. My elementary school librarian approached the podium with the

results in her hand. The runners-up were announced first. Then they called for a drum roll to

announce the overall winners. The librarian declared, “Your 2016 winners: The Rock ‘n’ Roll

Readers!”

My teammates and I were ecstatic. The hard work, time, and effort we had put in

throughout the past three months was rewarded with a medal and a sense of achievement. I will

never forget the feeling of knowing that the hard work I put in had accomplished my biggest goal

(at the time). Now, anytime I have a large goal in my life, or have an overwhelming task to

complete, I reminisce about my fifth-grade Battle of the Books and remember that if I put in the

hard work, it will pay off.