Saturday, August 30, 2008

How To Do Better in School

So you want better grades. Well alot of people do. The thing is that you want to be successful. You want to show that you have what it takes. Well, I'm here to tell you that you do have what it takes and you will get better grades if you want them. It's all up to you.

Now I'm not gonna lie to you, it will be difficult. I know what your thinking; why do this if its not going to be easy? Well life isn't easy. You need put in to get out. In the subject of your grades, you need to spend the time and effort in order to get the pay off. You can't just get those grades by sitting there sucking your thumb. You gotta get up and jump into that portal of learning. I'll try and get you to the right place on the other side.

The first thing that you need for good grades is motivation. This is the one thing that almost every student who struggles with grades lacks. Too many people don't have that push to try harder and that's what you need to find in order to achieve. You need to find something that pushes you towards getting good grades. Some examples could include:
  • a good career

  • a diploma or degree
  • money
  • the chance to prove others wrong

Once you have found that one thing that will keep you focused, turn that into your motivation to get better grades. Say you want to be a doctor. Well in order to be a doctor you got to have good grades. So in order to reach your goal of being a doctor, your go to try your hardest each and every day to get the grades to be one. Now not all goal are going to require good grades. You'll to find something that you can translated into needing good grades. Popular goals include ownership of this such as sports cars or big houses. Well, to get these you need have money. And it has proven that people with an education get an average of over 2 million dollars more money in there lives than those without an education. So it all comes back to the motivation to get good grades.

The next step is to strive for those goals. So your motivated to get good grades. You have a goal and you bound and determined to accomplish it. Now you need to put that motivation to work. When you go to class next day, I want you to try. Try? Yes, you need to try with all your might to get those grades you want. I have watched alot of people whine and complain that they can't get good marks when really if they applied themselves, they could improve their grades. You can try by doing simple things like pay attention in class and not getting distracted. Well now I'm starting to sound like a teacher. Paying attention?! Well school is one of those things that doesn't go well unless you apply yourself in all ways possible. This probably means some changes in your class habits.



Changing what you do in school can be like trying to quit smoking. It takes a lot of work and you may not succeed. But changing what you do in class can have a huge impact on what your grades look like. Now you won't be able to stop all at once. You might have to make changes slowly and over time. Try starting by doing little things like ask a question or try to answer one(probably something most of you already do). Then try participating in class discussions or reading the stuff in the text book. Once your starting to feel like you can really learn something, you can do some more ambitious things. Read ahead a little in the textbook or try to get assignments done in class. Not only will things like this help you to do better, but you will get your work done faster so that you have less homework and more free time! One day you might just find that your becoming a sponge to information. Your able to take more in that your teacher is saying and you can do assignments without asking for help. The best thing that can happen is you remember more of what you've read or heard in class in order to assignments and homework with more ease and efficiency.

Memory can be a powerful ally or your worst nightmare. If your like me, you've never really had an issue remember things in school(I know, I'm weird). But for many of you, it's probably really hard to remember what you talked about in class yesterday or how to solve a new formula. Well this may have to do with your memory capabilities. Luckily, your memory is something that you can easily build and improve. By doing simple little memory exercises, you can increase your memory and ability to recall details. Try some memory improvement sites like http://www.mindtools.com/memory.html or http://www.memorise.org/ for memory tips and exercises. If you have a deck of cards, you can just play a small game of memory with yourself just to improve your short term recall abilities. I don't know for sure on the direct help this can give you in school, but it is good for most general things where you need to use your memory.


Another part of class that you can easily improve on is homework. I have observed alot of people just shrug off homework and it can have devastating affects on your marks. Luckily, because it is homework and you work on it at home, you have many more resources at hand(Internet, books, parents, etc.). This makes finding answers alot easier, but homework still takes up time outside of school. I've mention above that getting your work done at school will reduce homework, but some homework can't be done at school. The best thing that I can suggest is to just sit down and do it right away. If you leave until last minute, you will end up rushing through it. By rushing through your homework like this, you use less detail and accuracy and you don't take in want it is that you are righting down. By taking the time to do it properly, the information actually sinks in and you'll find that it's there to remember when you need it. I suggest that when you sit down to do homework, find somewhere quiet to work on where there aren't any distractions. If you feel that you need a break, take one. Working on something for over an hour straight is a bit too much to take in and sometimes you just need to sit back and stop for a second. It's okay to take a break just so long as you go back and complete your work. It's always a good idea to make sure that you get all your work done the day before or sooner from when it's due.

So hopefully these techniques and tips have helped you to get a higher grade, but now what? Once you have reached the goal mark you want, you have to keep up the work. Just because you've reached your goal doesn't mean that's all over. If you go back to your old habits after, your marks will go right back down. It's important that once you have the good marks that you keep the mark steady. And you never know; maybe if you keep trying, you'll getter even higher marks!
I hope that this has all been helpful for you. If you see anything that could use improvement or any questions, please leave a comment. I will do my best to post new techniques and tips that I find.

Thank you

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