Read the essay. Then answer the questions.

The Year I Worked and Studied

1. Last September I took a job stocking shelves at a hardware store three evenings a week.
2. My parents worried that the hours would pull my grades down, and for the first two months they were right.
3. I was finishing homework after ten o'clock and falling asleep in my first-period class.
4. What changed was not the job but the way I planned around it.
5. I started writing down every assignment on a paper calendar taped inside my locker door.
6. Each of the three shifts have a different start time, so I learned to check the calendar before I agreed to anything.
7. I also began using the forty minutes on the bus to read instead of scrolling.
8. By December my grades had recovered, and my manager had given me a key to the stock room.
9. The job taught me something school had not: how to work beside adults who expect me to keep up.
10. Therefore, I would not tell every student to take an evening job.
11. The hours cost me the debate team, and I still notice that on Saturdays.
12. What I would say is that a schedule you write down is worth more than one you carry in your head.
13. That habit is the part of last year I plan to take with me to college.