Tips to get straight A's

@littlepony

For me, studying for exams always need to be planned out ahead. Having more time allows me to break-down my studying. I am a strong believer in the usage of notecards and working with others to help understand concepts :)

Technically, this is not a tip for studying for exams in particular, but in my experience, what helps a lot with your grades is to try to always do your homework/assignments.

Even if you don't do them perfectly/on time every time and even if some of them might not be mandatory to do - it's good practice. I don't want to be the 1000th person saying "practice makes perfect", but unless cramming is easy for you, I think doing homework/assignments is a good way to study the subject during the term.

Well, I'm actually a bit of a hypocrite here - since I'm at university, I tend to not do several of the non-mandatory assignments, to be honest. But because of that, I really notice the difference when studying a subject where I did my assignments and one where I didn't do them - the latter one requires much more effort from me, and I need to use every minute I have for studying if I want to get a good grade.

Of course, it's not impossible to get A's in subjects where you didn't do assignments (unless your performance on them is part of your grade, probably) and just studied for the exam, but from my experience, it's a lot harder and more stressful. So if you can motivate yourself to study and do assignments during the term before exams come up, it may save you a lot of time later - which is especially helpful if you have several exams in a short time.

Another reason for doing homework/assignments is that teachers tend to give exams on similar problems/topics they gave the homework/assignments on (my teachers mostly did, at least). That's why I usually go through the tasks I already solved again as preparation for the exam, and try to solve the tasks I didn't do yet as well.

Put down the electronics! If studying requires the use of your laptop for a word document or e-book, disconnect from the internet. I've found electronics to be the biggest distractors from studying.

Research also shows that allowing background distractors such as television, music, or an unquiet environment don't lead to good exam results. This is because we perform best under the same circumstances. This means that if you're going to be testing in a quiet environment, you should be studying in a quiet environment.

Research also shows that creating/taking "practice tests" on the material that you will be tested on leads to better understanding and better grades. "quizzing" yourself on flash cards is good and so is making multiple choice practice questions to test yourself with. Simply re-reading the material/your notes isn't as effective.

Disconnect from the internet is a great tip. Internet is the number # 1 distraction when studying.

I'm working on getting straight A's for my sophmore year of high school and what I noticed helped me at the end of my freshman year is to know how you learn best.

When people study for tests, some learn more by repeating the material over and over until you can't forget it. Others study by making an audio recording and listening to it, others by writing a story, drawing a picture, analyzing... pretty much anything. When I study, I find it really effective to make connections to the material.

Like in my world civ class, I had a question on a test that asked which 2 nations wanted the Falkland Islands in Latin America. The answer was Great Britain and Argentina. My connection was that Brit and Tina both liked the cute foreign boy in their class.
Because I made connections like that, I got a 93 on that test. (I would have gotten 100, but I only made connections for half of the questions.)

But yeah, bottom line: find what works for you. But note that for some people not studying at all works for them. Just experiment and see what works for you. Trial and error.

A tip to getting straight A's is to not think that you have to get them all on your own, asking questions is not a sign of weakness but a sign of strength where you realize that you can't do everything by yourself. You got this, fellow students!