Hi, my name is Gabriel Lee. I am currently a 7th grader from Miller Middle School. I have passed Advanced Level 1 on mental abacus, and I would like to talk about my experience as an abacus learner.

I started learning about 6 years ago, when I was in first grade. At first, I was not sure what an abacus was, and when I attended the first class I learned about the beads, how it was first used in China, and other interesting facts. From then until now, I have continued to learn the abacus and gotten pretty good.

My teacher was always helpful, and always tried to help me correct my mistakes before they became too big. Every now and then, she still tries to fix some of my bad habits, but not as much as before. She taught me everything about doing multiplication, division, and addition/subtraction on the abacus. As I got better and better, I was able to pass harder levels, and I eventually passed Advanced Level 1. This year I am going to try to get an even higher Advanced level, at least Advanced Level 2.

Sometimes, when I couldn't get the score I wanted, couldn't do a hard problem, or never got a problem right, I felt like quitting. But my teacher always picked me up and got me back on my feet, and I managed to get through the tough times. Before, it was hard for me to get past Level 1, and at first I thought I had no hope. But during the last few weeks before the test, I tried really hard and eventually passed the test with a pretty good score.

In school, abacus has really helped me in mathematics. I can do the simple multiplication, division, or addition problems mentally, and I can finish those problems much faster than the people who have to do their work on paper. It allowed me to get into Algebra, the best math class a 7th grader in Miller Middle School can get into. For this reason, I am glad that I attended abacus class.

Some of my school teachers were amazed that I could calculate that fast, and they wondered how I did it. I just told them I took abacus lessons, and some of them felt like taking them. When I had simple multiplication problems for homework, I got them done in seconds. I was really satisfying to be faster than most people at doing simple math problems.

With all these things abacus has helped me with, I feel that other young kids should start to learn too. It can help in school, passing tests, and doing homework much quicker or easier. I think that from my experience, it has really helped me a lot in many ways, and in my opinion, everyone should learn how to use the abacus if they want to be an excellent student.