Rating: 8⁄10 Read: 2014
How to Become Straight-A Student.
• Jot down to-dos and deadlines on a list whenever they arise. • Transfer these to-dos and deadlines to your calendar every morning. • Plan your day each morning by labeling your to-dos with realistic time frames and moving what you don’t have time for to different dates.
• Keep a work progress journal, and every day record what you wanted to accomplish and whether or not you succeeded. • When working, eat healthy snacks to maximize your energy. • Transform horrible tasks into a big event to help you gather the energy to start. • Build work routines to make steady progress on your obligations without expending too much of your limited motivational resources. • Choose your hard days in advance to minimize their impact.
• Try to fit as much work as possible into the morning and afternoon, between classes and obligations. • Study in isolated locations. • Take a break every hour.
Step #1. Take Smart Notes
• Always go to class and try to take the best notes possible. • For nontechnical courses, capture the big ideas by taking notes in the question/evidence/conclusion format. • For technical courses, record as many sample problems and answers as possible.
• Work a little bit each day on your assignments; avoid suffering from day-before syndrome. • Read only the favored sources on the syllabus in detail. To decide how much time to spend on supplemental sources, remember the importance hierarchy: – readings that make an argument are more important than – readings that describe an event or person, which are more important than – readings that only provide context (i.e., speech transcripts, press clippings). • Take reading notes in the question/evidence/conclusion format. • Work in groups on problem sets, solve problems on the go, and write up your answers formally the first time.
• Figure out exactly what the test will cover. • Cluster your notes for nontechnical courses. • Build mega-problem sets for technical courses.
• Embrace the quiz-and-recall method. It’s the single most efficient way to study. • Spread out memorization over several days. Your mind can do only so much at a time.
• Eliminate the question marks for topics covered in class or from the reading that you don’t understand.
• Look over the whole test first. • Figure out how much time you have to spend on each question (leaving a ten-minute cushion at the end). • Answer the questions in order of increasing difficulty. • Write out a mini-outline before tackling an essay question. • Use any and all leftover time to check and recheck your work.
• Start looking for an interesting topic early.
• Start with general sources and then follow references to find the more targeted sources where good thesis ideas often hide.
• A thesis is not a thesis until a professor has approved it.
• Find sources. • Make personal copies of all sources. • Annotate the material. • Decide if you’re done. (If the answer is “no,” loop back to #1.)
• There is no shortcut to developing a well-balanced and easy-to-follow argument. • Dedicate a good deal of thought over time to getting it right. • Describe your argument in a topic-level outline. • Type supporting quotes from sources directly into your outline.
• Before starting to write, get some opinions on the organization of your argument and your support from classmates and friends who are familiar with the general area of study. • The more important the paper, the more people who should review it.
• Follow your outline and articulate your points clearly. • Write no more than three to five pages per weekday and five to eight pages per weekend day.
• Solid editing requires only three careful passes: – The Argument Adjustment Pass: Read the paper carefully on your computer to make sure your argument is clear, fix obvious errors, and rewrite where the flow needs improvement. – The Out Loud Pass: Carefully read out loud a printed copy of your paper, marking any awkward passages or unclear explanations. – The Sanity Pass: A final pass over a printed version of the paper to check the overall flow and to root out any remaining errors.