Aanshi Shah Week #16: LOOK AT ME

I’m pretty sure we all took the AP Lang exam, and I’m not sure if there were multiple sets of MCQs, but everyone I’ve talked to so far has seen “LOOK AT ME.” When I opened the AP Lang exam and read that article, I thought it was over, since I had never read such an odd yet pointless essay. I had to re-read that article twice before I understood what the author meant a little, and even then, I could tell it was weird. I feel like the author felt like she was onto something, but to me and everyone online, it felt incredibly strange. Answering the MCQs about her article felt like a genuine fever dream, since I couldn’t even get why she was thinking the way she did. Obviously, we look at people’s faces since they express emotion. I’m not sure why the author didn’t know that. This is a very commonly held notion; we look at people’s faces and eyes when we look at them. Yet, the author found a way to question it, and even though her points were all half-developed and confusing, I see how she could have made a decent argument for questioning the exact reason we place so much importance on faces as a society. Even though it was done poorly, the author challenged a commonly held societal norm, and it got me to think about the other norms that we mindlessly accept. I think her point was that people should place more emphasis on a person’s mind when thinking about them rather than picturing her face, and her reasoning had the chance to make sense. Thinking about her attempt at confronting ingrained norms is probably going to be an important memory of mine that encourages me to think a little more deeply about the norms I see in my daily life



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Comments

  1. Wesley GuoMay 21, 2025 at 4:43 PM

    Hello Aanshi! First of all, I liked your reference to the AP Lang Exam that we all took, and I thought it was an interesting direction to go for your blog post this week. I will be honest, through my first reading I also had no clue what the author was doing. We share the same feeling when you mentioned how answering those MCQs felt sort of like a fever dream. I do think it helped me personally though, as it created a very jarring experience which led to me being fully awake for the rest of the MCQs and the essays. Overall, I really enjoyed reading your blog posts throughout this year and I hope you had as much fun writing them as I had reading them this semester!

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  2. Michelle GeorgeMay 21, 2025 at 8:46 PM

    Hi Aanshi! I like how you referenced the AP English Language and Composition Exam that we took recently. I agree that when I first read the article "LOOK AT ME." I was genuinely so confused since the argument that the author was trying to make was poorly worded. However, as I read more and more of the essay, I realized how the author was trying to relay the idea that instead of picturing someone's face or how they look, we should remember them by the way they made us feel. We should assess each person we meet based on their principles, beliefs, and how they think rather than just a surface-level judgment. I believe that the author made an excellent argument and made the audience question their actions and to change them in order to foster better, more meaningful relationships with others.

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  3. Anthony LiuMay 21, 2025 at 11:49 PM

    Hi Aanshi! When I first saw the title, I actually chuckled a bit. I remembered seeing a joke about how AP exams create inside jokes for 20,000 people. I swear I can never see loquats or wall murals the same ever again. I thought the essay was pretty interesting, but I do have to agree it was also kind of pointless. Even though it broke down what “LOOK. AT. ME.” might mean, I wasn’t convinced why the author was so fixated on it. Definitely not something worth losing sleep over. I hope we all get scores we are satisfied with on the AP exam!

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