Hopefully (something can happen)

Use "Hopefully..." to talk about something that you hope will happen. For example:

Hopefully we can finish the deal by the end of this month.

You "hope" for something that:

• might possibly happen
• isn't definitely going to happen

 So, for example, you can't say "Hopefully I can be a baseball player" if you're 30 years old and not athletic. It's too unrealistic. Instead, you would say:

I wish I could be a baseball player.

bring (one's) GPA up to (a number)

High school and college students in the U.S. have a "GPA". This stands for "Grade Point Average". It's a number between 0 and 4.0 which represents the average of all the student's grades. It works like this:

• An "A" in a class is worth 4 points.
• A "B" is worth 3 points, a "C" is worth 2, and so on.
• You take the average of all the grades to get a "GPA".
• You talk about the GPA as "__ point __". For example, "three point five".

A 3.0 GPA or higher is considered OK. Lower than that isn't good to put on an application or resumé.

If a student's grades are low, they may try to "bring their GPA up". This means to get better grades in their classes, so that the average rises.

this semester

A "semester" is half of a school year. Usually there's a fall semester and a spring semester.

Most college courses last for one semester. High school classes might last for one semester. Or they might last a whole year, but they'll still be broken up into two semesters. In that case, the students will get a grade for each semester, and then a total grade for the year.

"This semester" means the semester that's happening right now.