Straight A students: How do you do it?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
141

<p>Being able to do well in high school may not be completely dependent on natural talent, but it certainly helps! Of course, time management and study skills are important, but the easier it is for you personally to comprehend and apply the material, the easier high school will be for you. The people I knew in high school who had the highest GPAs were those who coasted through their classes on intrinsic talent, not those who spent hours and hours on studying. I admit that this is pretty horrible, but if the question being asked is how the straight-A kids do it, that's my answer. </p>

<p>Also, it isn't "simple" for everyone. I knew plenty of people whose study skills were far better than mine, but whose grades suffered because they just didn't understand the material as easily. This is especially true if the work required is more than just "multiple-choice exams" or "formulaic 5-paragraph essays"- I personally wouldn't want to take a class that offered that little intellectual stimulus! Even my AP classes, which are based on MC/short-essay exams, required me to do a lot more in-depth work than was necessarily required to pass the test.</p>

142

<p>The most important thing is HOW you do your homework and studying. Most people when they study for test they "passive" study, which is very unrewarding. Passive studying is simply rereading your notes or looking over everything since then. It doesn't really work. You waster a lot of time, and your grades don't really show it. Think about it as a formula. Consider the intensity of your studying and how long you study. The intensity is on a scale from 0-10 and you multiply that by the hours. If you are doing your homework while you are watching TV, iming, etc., your intensity is very low, and you will end up doing your homework double or triple the length as if your intensity was a ten. Therefore, when you do your work, eliminate all other distractions. Find a room, library, tree, anything away from people. Don't plan to eat or do any other activity except your homework. When you do study, use stradgies that make you recall and analyze the material. Use the "Quiz and Recall" method. Ask yourself a question and then answer it without looking at your material. </p>

<p>When you study, follow these tips:
1. Never study for more than 1 hour without taking a break. No matter what you are doing, after one hour take a 5 min. break. You won't waste time, and you will remember more.
2. If you can help it, never study past 7pm. You are losing focus and accuracy.
3. Devote your entire self to the books when you study, an intensity of 10. You will accomplish, so much more.
4. Before you study, prepare all the materials and even prepare a quiz for a test. Make yourself USE the information. Trust me, this works!
5. When you take notes, think as everything as question, evidence, and conclusion. It makes you understand the material more, and it how tests or developed.</p>

<p>Overall, TIME MANGEMENT is the most important thing next to your actual work. Here are a couple of tips:</p>

<ol>
<li>Get a monthly or weekly calender for yourself. Every evening update your calender. Plan out each day with your TO-DOs plus time.<br></li>
<li>In the morning, take your schedule and a piece of paper along with you.<br></li>
<li>Stick to the schedule as close as possible. Whenever something comes up that you need to remember, write it on the piece of paper in your pocket. You won't forget it then.</li>
<li>On your college applications, there is nothing that asks you about facebook or IM. Eliminate them to provide more time, and do it if you have time.</li>
</ol>

<p>When you get stressed out, I have found that mediation is wonderful. I know to some it might sound silly. I thought so at first. You feel wonderful afterwards. I got a book for three dollars and it is a true bible.</p>

143

<p>Self driven.</p>

144

<p>You asked, and I'm going to answer honestly. Here's a daily schedule:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Wake up at 6. First thing I do is go down and have breakfast. Breakfast=good. Don't skip it. Wake up early enough so you have plenty of time to get ready and such. I'm a girl, so I leave myself 40 minutes to eat, dress, do make-up, etc. so I feel ready to go when I leave for my zero hour class.</p></li>
<li><p>School. Pay attention, which has been stressed. If you have a choice, sit in the front of class. You're less prone to do homework during class and actually pay attention, no matter how mind-numbingly boring it might be. As other people have said, DON'T TAKE A STUDY HALL. They're a waste of 45ish minutes. Do homework when you have a chance, but don't sacrifice catching up with a friend to do so. Make sure to have at least one hearty laugh a day. It's good for you.</p></li>
<li><p>After school. I'm in two varsity sports (XC and Lacrosse), and during the winter I'm in Debate, Quiz Bowl, and Math Team, so I'm always busy after school. Honestly, I have to stay busy or else my productivity plummets and I go waste my time on anything and everything (cough-CollegeConfidential-cough). I usually get home around 6.</p></li>
<li><p>Relax. For the next three hours, I have down time. This means chat with friends, shower, eat dinner, read a book for fun, get online, whatever. Down time is important.</p></li>
<li><p>Homework. I usually start this around 9-9:30. The key here is to be focused. When I do my homework, I concentrate on it and get it done. I'll head to bed around 11:30-midnight.</p></li>
<li><p>Study session. This is what makes people think I'm insane. I function best on very little sleep. Usually, I'm up again by 4 or so studying. Experience has shown that I can memorize my APUSH chapters most easily during this time and that that AP Chem problem I had trouble with the night before makes perfect sense at 4am. Occasionally if I have a lot of work left over, I'll be up at 3 (but I would have been in bed earlier). I generally take a nap from 5:30-6am.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>It sounds crazy, but it works for me. Another oddity- I write essays the night before they're due; some of my best works have been the product of writing from 1am-5am. I don't really function at normal times. Sometimes I'll get home and sleep and then wake up at 11 to start homework. Find what time between you getting home from school and you leaving for school which is most productive for you and capture it. If it happens to fall between the hours of 11 and 6, just be sure to be quiet and don't tell your parents. ;)</p>

<p>EDIT: To be fair, I have a semi-photographic memory, which helps immensely. Need to memorize a 25 page chapter for my APUSH test later that day? No problem. I just read the chapter and focus, and during the test I can actually zoom in on the exact spot on the page where the information was. It drives my friends nuts.</p>

145

<p>Quite simply, I don't take notes. These only make me stress on minor details instead of worrying about over-arching concepts.</p>

146

<p>Pay attention in class, even when you want to fall asleep. Get on your teacher's good side. DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Do Extra credit whenever possible.</p>

<p>If you have a tough schedule, (I have 4 AP's), try to enroll in a blowoff class. Extra points if your blowoff class appears to be a real class-- I get more calc homework done in Spanish III than in math itself. Band, while strenuous during rehearsal, doesn't assign any homework.</p>

<p>If there's a big project due, don't spend too much time afterschool wasting time. Immediately after class, go to any club/officer meetings or practices you have to attend, then go home. Hanging out with friends is fun, but not at the expense of turning in the project unfinished, (unless you work together- study groups at the library can be beneficial if you don't waste time). </p>

<p>On a usual day afterschool, I leave the school around 4-5:00, depending on if there's a meeting or not. If I don't have any meetings, I usually wait with my friends for the parking lot to clear out. With two outlets and 2000 students, the half hour wait would have been wasted in traffic anyway. </p>

<p>Bonus: Go to an easy school with teachers that inflate grades and/or get on your teachers' good sides.</p>

147

<p>You guys are all insane. </p>

<p>I am a straight A student, and I have been in multiple clubs/activities and I wouldn't consider it to be that hard. I have been in marching/concert band, swimming (high school captain, club year-round 23+ hrs/week), FCA (officer, captain), NHS (president), a member of the spirit organization at our school (went to most b-ball games, took third quarter breaks at football games to cheer), and I was in track in 9th grade. And I've taken 20+ honors/AP classes over my high school career. I've also written about 20-30 scholarship essays and participated in other outside contests. Oh, and I definitely have lots of friends and hang out with them on weekends and some weekdays.</p>

<p>Here are some of the things I have done:
-Do math homework at school always. I have not done a single page of math homework or studying for a quiz/test for it at home, but rather do it at school. It is the easiest to do during other classes.
-Make sure to have a class that looks like a real class on paper but really is a study hall. AP Psychology serves that purpose right now. I do all my homework in that class, except for the last week in every quarter when I actually do all the work I haven't been doing for that class.
-Try studying with a group of friends. It keeps me more focused as we try to help each other learn information.
-Sleep during school. A lot of the time I stay up late, so during lectures, videos, boring times I take a nap at school. Seats in the back work well for this.
-Essays are golden when written at the last minute (i.e. 2 A.M.) Also, if you know your teacher won't read it that hard, then don't put that much effort in it. I spent about 4-5 hours on a two month, five-page research paper and got a 98.
-AP tests are made to cram for with Princeton Review. Don't worry about getting the content during the year unless you absolutely need it for the tests during the year. A good two weeks of reading through PR and Kaplan should suffice for a 4/5.
-Last year in AP USH, a group of ten of us split up vocab/questions for every unit, emailed each other, and printed it all out. Our teacher knew it, but if he/she is worried about it at least change the font. Oh, and we had test corrections which gave us tons of leeway.
-Use any and all available time to multi-task. I've practiced my instrument, and actually played it at band practices while working on math homework, writing an essay, or simply studying. I'm also good at playing simple computer games while studying.
-Most importantly, just get EVERYTHING done. As long as it counts that is. I always get all my homework done the night before, no matter how late I have to stay up. I wrote three government papers with footnotes, bibliography, blahblahblah in 7 hours the night of (from 11PM-6AM) and got the best grade in the class.
-Oh, and diligence is not always, and hardly ever will be key. I'm am in no way exemplary of a model student who takes notes, goes home and studies each night, but I get often the highest grade in the class. I just got my 4.0 UW GPA, and that is all that matters for me, whether I learn the info or simply cram it and regurgitate it.</p>

148

<p>does anyone have a traditional-healthy way to get good grades and fit in EC time? Ex. Sleep at 10, wake at 6 - exercise. Do homework 4-6 pm.</p>

<p>Something traditional with time for sat prep</p>

149

<p>Simplest, fastest way to get straight As:</p>

<p>*Procrastination. *</p>

150

<p>^Actually, that worked for me :)</p>

151

<p>Homework 4-6 pm, starting earlier or later as necessary, is a good idea. My bus comes at 6:20, so I wake up at 5:30. Because of this, I try to make sure I get to sleep by 9:30.</p>

<p>As for after-school activities, don't load up on too many. At my school, sports and theater are (almost) everyday commitments, and so if you do them, you can't really do much else. Even if you did have time, the in-school and out-of-school commitment can occasionally push away time better used for homework.</p>

<p>One of the ways I keep a 4.0 is by reading (fiction or non-fiction is fine). Many of the things that I learn later come up in class, and then I don't have to work so hard.</p>

152

<p>1) Think about what you're going to do all the time---always be mentally reviewing stuff you've learned/are going to do. I do that during the school day about violin. When I get home to practice, I've been mentally preparing for a long time and can concentrate.</p>

<p>2)Procrastinate---If you procrastinate, you have the material on your mind fresh and new. A lot of people I know get the studying out of the way and then do mediocre on the test. I do the homework the class before, then remember all the concepts.</p>

<p>3)Network---Talk to people. Now I don't mean become a myspacewhore, but if you talk to people they'll let you know of things to make your life easier. </p>

<p>4) Lastly, overwork yourself. I don't feel satisfied until I know every fiber of my being is achieving something at all times.</p>

153

<p>
[quote]
Another oddity- I write essays the night before they're due; some of my best works have been the product of writing from 1am-5am. I don't really function at normal times. Sometimes I'll get home and sleep and then wake up at 11 to start homework.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>lol, I thought I was the only one who did that :D
My dad has to persuade me to sleep from 4-11 pm because he knows I'm not going to start my work until 11 anyway.</p>

154

<p>My As are the product of willpower, a good work ethic, and sleep deprivation.</p>

155

<p>The key is to be organized.Understand and not memorise. Organize your priorities.</p>

156

<p>Idea is to work hard and have a nice system going.</p>

<p>I personally don't think that aiming for straight A's is all that important. It's really a goal without a real cause. Depending on your school, the difficulty of the class, A's mean different things.</p>

<p>At my old high school, I was able to manage straight-A's despite having the most difficult schedule in my class. However, I didn't work at all for it - all I did was do homework and show up to class. That was an easy HS.</p>

<p>At the HS I am at now, I work very hard (5hr/day outside of school hours), but still end up with a couple of B+'s at the end of the semesters. From what I see, most people with the straight-A's take all the easiest courses possible, while the ones with lower GPAs tend to take more challenging courses. Of course, there are still a few incredible students who take the challenging courses and still get A's. Their main advice -> get enough sleep.</p>

157

<p>well for me, I'm not consistent throughout the year, but I still do get straight A's. If there are 4 marking periods, only my semester grades are recorded on my transcript. so during my 1st and 3rd m.p. i do all my extra curriculars (musicals, competitions, writing, tennis, etc) then by the 2nd and 4th, i catch up. I just get done what i need to get done in the immediate future.</p>

158

<p>I honestly have no idea. Every quarter I seem to slide by with a 4.0 while still managing to have some sort of life and get 9 hours of sleep a night. People think I'm either super-motivated or super-intelligent, and I'm really neither.</p>

159

<p>The important part for me is just getting the work done. During school, I usually stay up until 12 AM, but this doesn't affect me that much. I also know how much time I need to put into assignments in order to have an A in the class, and can adjust my level of effort accordingly.</p>

160

<p>^^ I do that as well but sometimes I underestimate the level of effort necessary.
Once I got cocky the night before a Chem test and decided that I wasn't going to study that much and that things would sort themselves out as usual.
I failed. Literally.
Ouch.</p>