Straight-A or first class students are not actually mini gods, they are normal students but with some distinctive reading, disciplines and study measures that gives them an upper hand in the class, and makes them pass their exams in flying colours.
You can be a straight- A student too, it is time to get out of that comfortable zone and aim higher this semester.
Here are the various working study methods that has been complied and confirmed by grade A students to be effective and efficient.
Class
Be attentive
Be attentive in class.
This is one most important habit you should start inculcating. Learning must start from the class and not from a textbook before an examination. This also saves you from troubles of going through the introductory portions in the textbook. WRITE NOTES and I guarantee, this works.
Increase engagement - This isn't like photosynthesis; you don't just absorb knowledge by sitting in lecture. You are on an educational journey. This looks different for everyone, but try asking questions, taking notes and finding friends in classes who share a passion for the topics (and for education in general).
Courses
Know your course syllabi - If you want the best score over all of your classes (a.k.a. GPA) while inputting the lowest amount of effort, you need to know the weights of every graded piece of work. This is useful when reasoning around priorities. For example. While many would just stick to their gut reaction of doing the essay, you could do the homework assignment tonight and then do the essay tomorrow night and only lose ~1% of your overall course grade.
Take courses you are interested in (or at least learn why they are important/useful) - If you don't like the content, and can't find a way to make it relevant to you, you will find it difficult to be engaged. If the course isn't engaging to you, try spending some time on the side seeing where the course content is applicable in real life.
Study
Give enough time for study.
You might be interested in lot more things ,set your priorities. Sacrifice some social comfort and you will find lot more time to do lot more things.
What is your studying environment? This is incredibly important. A studying environment, as I'm defining it loosely here, includes where you study, who you study with, and what sort of time interval you study for.
Do you like quiet places or a little bit of background chatter, a sunny park or an enclosed room with little to no visual stimuli? Figure out which place works best for you. This may change, depending on whether you're alone or not. I have a friend who does all of her homework at various different coffee shops around our town. I personally do my homework and studying at home when I'm alone and at coffee shops when I'm with friends. Some good places to study tend to be: the library, a local Starbucks/Panera, or an office at home. DO NOT study in your bed (your bedroom's fine if it has a desk). Studying in your bed is one of the fastest ways to fall asleep. Trust me.
Do you like studying alone or in groups? Generally, I like studying alone except for in problem-based classes like math or science. In those cases, it's probably best to study with another person, because they know how to do problems that you don't, and vice versa. If you're comfortable studying in a group, go for it—they tend to distract me.
In terms of time: I like studying in long intervals because I'm one of those rare people with enough focus to study in 4, 5, 6, and 7-hour stretches. However, this depends on what I'm studying for, and I wouldn't recommend it for everyone. I would recommend studying for intervals of 1 or 2 hours, with a 10-20 minute break in between to rest your brain. Halfway through, take a longer break if you feel like it. I use this time to go for a run, because it helps me process what I've learned. During this break, rest or do something that relaxes you, so you're prepped to start the next interval of studying.
Some studying DOs and DON'Ts for you:
DO: minimize distractions, including your phone and social media; study in a place where you're comfortable; eat a healthy meal on the day of the test; and stay organized!
DON'T: drink a lot of caffeine (some may help, don't drink enough so that you're going to crash halfway through studying), study late into the night or pull an all nighter (your brain needs time to process what you learn, and sleep is one of the ways it does that), or leave all of your studying until the last minute.
Study alone
Everyone seems to like studying and doing homework in groups. I’ve never thought this productive and find myself wasting time socializing and cracking jokes when I study with others.
Studying alone helps you focus. It also helps you learn at your own pace, speeding through concepts I find trivial and spending more time on harder concepts without having to constantly answer questions from people around me. With a quiet room and some nice music, I can devour a textbook or solve practice problems quickly and efficiently.
group studying is, 100% of the time, a 100% bad idea. Sure, you’ll have fun conversations and good laughs and watch funny YouTube videos, but you won’t get any real work done. Do your work in solitude, then socialize with your buddies later. Real, creative, insightful work takes focus, it takes concentration, and it takes grit — and it just doesn’t happen when you or your friend constantly interrupt one another. There’s no substitute for hard work when it comes to understanding the material. You won’t get a deep understanding if you rely on friends to explain every concept to you. You’ve gotta do the heavy lifting yourself. Point is, you’re a lone wolf when you’re working, that’s it.
Find an effective study spot - I think this is one of the most underrated parts of effective studying. It's amazing what the little things can do to up your motivation and remove distraction. For some, it's a well lit room with lots of sunlight. For others, its absolute silence. For many, its white noise from a restaurant or coffee shop. Experiment. Look for places on campus where nobody else thinks to study and know which times they are best. And if you are distracted at home, go out and study.
If you have a 15 minute block, it's (usually) enough time to study. Many people feel that studying is supposed to be some sort of time intensive ritual where you take a biweekly pilgrimage to the library for a few hours and come home. For A-students, it's not so. Set your mind onto the task at hand and dive right in. You'll be surprised how much you can get done when you stop checking Facebook and start chipping away at the task.
study efficiently: This cannot stress this enough. Knowing how you study is one of the most important factors in making the most of your time. While some of us are able to ace tests by reading over the material once, or simply by paying attention in class, the vast majority of students need to do something to make the information stick. You need to figure out the environment and circumstances that make your time the most effective.
What type of learner are you?
Are you a visual learner, an auditory learner, or a little bit of both? (This is a tired concept—let me rephrase.) What's your personal preference? Do you find that you absorb more information when listening to a teacher or that you understand a piece of literature more when you listen to the audiobook? Or do you like reading and taking notes better? Do you like using flashcards, or writing up an exhaustive review sheet? If you've hit on a method that you feel works for you, apply it. If you haven't, read the next roman numeral.
If you're like me, you learn information over a long period of time, with multiple reviews. In an information-based class, like Biology or History, with a lot of facts and minutiae to learn, I start by taking detailed notes. This is when I see the information for the first time. Putting in a couple of hours on the weekend to take the most involved notes that I possibly can means that I have a working knowledge of the material before the class starts. The next step: usually the teacher goes over the material in class, which is when I'll print out my notes and write over them, with the important parts highlighted or underlined and additional info mentioned by the teacher added in the margins. Before the test, I do a huge review. For this, you should use the study method that works best for you—I personally sit down the night before and create a review sheet including both the textbook notes and my teacher's additions. It takes a long time, but it embeds all of the information in my brain.
For problem-based classes, like Calculus, Physics, and Chemistry, you'll probably get a lot of problem sets and tests based on variations of certain concepts. The only things you can do to study for them are a) review the theorems and equations you need to know and b) do problems until your arms fall off or you know how to do everything in the textbook.
Know when to take a brief break - Sometimes, the best thing you can do is give your mind some time away from the problem. If you have been working hard at something for anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours, maybe take a quick break (scaling linear with how long you were working). Get some caffeine. Go for a walk or work out. Play video games for a bit. But come back and get it done..
Do not multi-task
Pick less. There are always so many things to do. Focusing on one work is far more productive than multi-tasking. Turn off all phone alerts, notifications once you sit to study.
Why would you want to open facebook every one hour just to see whether someone liked your crappy post ? Its useless, completely.
Help your buddies — explain tough concepts, whether in math or in CS. Help them dissect tough literary themes, whether Shakespeare or Bronte. Make a concerted and deliberate effort to help them. Not only will you come out with a greater understanding, but your friends will be appreciative. Your efforts will not go unnoticed. Remember this, your friends will help you in your greatest times of need. They are your moral and emotional support, and you are theirs. Studying is tough. Go through it together, it’s a group fight. Without help from friends, I would not have survived this past semester.
Sleep
Getting enough sleep is critical to functioning properly throughout the day and getting the most out of your studying efforts.
Keeping a sleep schedule takes discipline and flexibility. If you have an early class, you better make sure to finish things on time. If you can’t finish something non-critical that you’re in the middle of, recognize that you can drop it and take the short-term loss for the long-term health benefit.
your body is a temple. It’s sacred. Your mind, that’s sacred too. So treat them well. Sleep early (or if you sleep late, wake up late). That’s treating your mind and body with respect. Get your 6–8 hours of shut-eye no matter what. Without sleep, your brain is running on sub-optimal performance. That means it’ll be tougher for you to make mental connections, it’ll be tougher for you to understand new materials, and hell, it’s going to be tough for you to even stay awake. Get sleep. No excuses. No buts. Cut extracurricular commitments. Cut clubs. Take an easier class. I don’t care. If you’re not getting enough sleep, you’re not getting a quality education.
Time
Socialize, participate in fun clubs, have a life, etc.
If you don’t have fun at school, you won’t enjoy it. Ideally, you’ll be studying the subjects you enjoy, but the world isn’t ideal. Furthermore, studying is stress, no matter how much you enjoy the subject; the only thing that changes due to enjoyment is the threshold for how much stress you can take.
Go out with your friends, make new ones, join a club, do something that is not school- or career-related and purely for the sake of enjoyment.
Yes, sometimes clubs will overlap with academic and professional goals, but your main intent for joining your “fun” club should not be to climb the ladder. You’ll lower your stress level, make new friends, and go back to your work in a happier state.
Overall, time is a valuable resource
The only thing stopping you from getting an A is time. Minimize the time you spend on classes but maximize the output, and getting straight-A’s becomes manageable
.
Disclaimer - I know some things can't be done like this, but at least try looking for ways to integrate the thought.
DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Procrastination is the enemy of good grades. It's easier to produce good work by revising and editing. Additionally, spending a couple of minutes every night on a huge project, essay or presentation breaks up a huge amount of work into manageable segments, time that you might not have the night before something is due. You have no idea what you'll be doing that night, and if you end up having a track meet that ends at 7 and a club meeting at 7:30 the night before a big essay is due (like I did), you probably won't have time to complete that entire essay. Procrastination inevitably leads to pain, stress, and anxiety. Don't do it.
This was a long explanation of what took me my four years in high school to learn, and I hope it helps!
The world is waiting for you, go show them what u got!
Don't hesitate to share, let's help other students out there
Study hacks that straight-A students use to excel in high school/college
by
John
on
February 24, 2017
Straight-A or first class students are not actually mini gods, they are normal students but with some distinctive reading, disciplin...
