Grades are the measure of college success. Like the salary at a job,
a batting average in baseball, or the price of a stock, your GPA is an
objective indication of how you’re doing—plain for all to see (including
you). And yet, there’s surprisingly little good information – least of
all from professors—about just what you need to do to get good
grades. We go where others fear to tread. And so, here are the 12
secrets of getting really good grades in college (A’s, we mean):
1. Take control of your destiny. Your grade
destiny, that is. There’s no teacher or parent to remind you every day
of what you need to do, or to make sure you’ve studied for exams. It’s
all in your hands. So step up to bat and take responsibility. What
grades you get will depend on what you yourself do.
2. Don’t overload. Some students think it’s a mark
of pride to take as many hours as the college allows. It isn’t. Take
four or at the most five courses each semester. That way, you’ll be
able to devote all your energies to a manageable number of subjects and
you won’t have to sacrifice quality for quantity.
3. Get your a** to class.
Most
students have a cutting budget: the number of lectures they think they
can miss in each course and still do well. But if there are 35 class
meetings, each class contains 3 percent of the content: miss seven, and
that’s 20 percent. How can you get good grades then?
- Best Kept Secret
. Some not-so-nice professors want to penalize students who blow off
the class right before Easter or Spring Break. So they pick an essay
question for the midterm or final from that very lecture. Next result?
You wind up doing major damage to your GPA for the price of just one
class.
4. Take really good notes. In many intro courses,
the professor’s lectures form the major part of the material tested on
the midterm and final. So, as you’re taking notes you’re really writing
the textbook for the course – which in many cases is more important
than the official textbook. Be sure to get down everything the
professor says, and to maintain your notes in an organized and readable
form. After all, these are the notes you’ll have to study a number of
times later in the course.
5. Study like you mean it. There’s a difference
between studying and “studying” – and you know what it is. When you’re
studying, you’re 100 percent focused on, and engaged with, the
material: a total immersion in what you’re doing and a strong desire to
get it right. When you’re only “studying” – that is,
pretending
to study – you’re 35 percent involved, with the other 65 percent of
your attention divided among tweeting your friend about how much you’re
studying, scoping out the surrounding tables to see who else might be
around (and how attractive they are), and daydreaming about all the fun
things you’ll do when you finish this God-awful studying. Look, we know
studying can be painful, but all students who get A’s do it (no matter
what they tell you).
6. Do all the homework. You might have thought
that the homework and problem sets – each of which is worth maybe
one-tenth of one percent of the grade – are just busy work – something
the professor assigns just to make sure you’re doing something in the
course each week. But, really, the homework provides applications of the
concepts, principles, and methods of the field to actual examples. The
same sort of examples that will come up on the bigger tests. If you do
well on the homework – that is, get 10 out of 10 on the problem sets,
or a check-plus on the little writing exercises—you’re putting yourself
in a good position to get a 100 when it really counts – on the midterm
or final.
7. Take each test three times. When done right,
taking a test is really three activities: preparing for the test,
taking the actual exam, then going over the comments to see what
mistakes you made. Each activity furnishes important – and
grade-improving – information: The studying gives you practice in
questions very similar to the those that will be on the test; the
actual test is where the A is earned (at least in the best case); and
the review of the comments is an investment in an A on the next test.
8. Always answer the question asked. More points
are lost on tests – and, even more so, on papers – by not answering the
question asked than by giving the wrong answer. That’s because students
often have strong – and wrong – preconceptions about what the professor
should be asking. “How can the question be so specific,” they wonder.
“How can the professor
not be asking a question about last
week’s classes, especially since he or she seemed so interested in that
topic?” “Can the professor
really be asking about that journal
article we were supposed to read, or about the discussion in section?”
Don’t try to psych out the professor or distrust what you see before
your very eyes.
9. Play all four quarters. Many college courses
are “back-loaded.” More than half the grade is left to assignments due
the last month of the semester: a third test, 15 percent; the term-
or research paper, 25 percent; the cumulative final, 30 percent. You
get the idea. Pace yourself and don’t run out of gas just as you’re
coming into the home stretch.
10. Do all the “extras.” In some courses, there
are special, end-of-the-semester activities that can improve your
grade. Review sessions, extra office hours, rewrites of papers, extra
credit work – all of these can be grade-boosters. Especially in
schools where there are no pluses and minuses, even a few extra points
can push your border-line grade over the hump (say, from a B + to an
A-minus – that is, an A).
11. Join a community. Many students improve their
grades with “study buddies” or study groups. Try to meet at least once
a week – especially in courses in which there are weekly problem sets
or quizzes. Students can improve their grades one level (or more) when
they commit to working in an organized way with other students.
12. Resolve to get at least one “A” each semester.
Getting even a single “A” will change the way you think about
yourself. You’ll be more confident about your abilities and more
hopeful for future semesters. If you’re at all close, in even one
course, work really hard to do it. It will change things forever.
Ten years later, in 1915, Einstein completed his General Theory of
Relativity and in 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics (iconic
status cemented in 1919 when Arthur Eddington’s expedition confirmed
Albert Einstein’s prediction). It also launched him to international
superstardom and his name became a household word synonymous with genius
all over the world.
Goal Setting with Your Child
as reading more interesting books, succeeding at Sudoku,