23. Study Tips

HOW TO GET GOOD GRADES

By. Dra. Noor Hayati

Some people believe intelligence is the key, but actually brain is not the only answer. Top grades don’t always go to the brightest students. Sometimes, the students with high I.Q don’t do as well as the students with lower I.Q. Some people said that “ It’s not how long you sit there with the books open”, but the most important one is “ It’s what you do while you are sitting”. So how to get good grades? It’s no secret. Here are the tips.

1. SET PRIORITIES Top students brook no intrusions on study time. Once the books are open, no phone calls, no TV shows, no radio turns on and no snacks ignores. STUDY IS BUSINESS, and business comes before recreation.

2. STUDY ANYWHERE OR EVERYWHERE
Most students agree that study times are strictly a matter of personal preference. Some students study late at night when the house is quite, others wake up early, many other students review their lesson as soon as they come home from school when the lessons are still fresh in their minds. However, all of them agree on the need for consistency. Whatever they are doing, they set and maintain a slot everyday for studying.

3. LEARN HOW TO READ The secret of good reading is to be an active reader. A better way of reading is by examining the table of contents, graphs and the pictures. That way, when you begin to read, you must have the sense of material, thus you can retain a lot of information.


4. SCHEDULE YOUR TIME When the teacher gives you a lot of works and assignments, make a time table and divide the works into smaller tasks, so the works don’t look so overwhelming.

5. TAKE GOOD NOTES Reading the textbook is important because the teacher is going to test you on what he or she emphasizes. That’s what you find in your notes. Top students also take notes while reading text assignments. Making a short summary of the lesson, can help too.


6. SPEAK UP If you don’t understand what your teacher explains, ask him/her to repeat it. Do not memorize information for test only because better grades come from better understanding. Try not to be shy to ask questions. It’s a matter of showing intellectual curiosity.

7. STUDY TOGETHER When you study together, you can discuss problems together, try different methods and explain solutions to one another. By contrast, the students who study alone spend most of their time to read and reread the text. But when study together do not use most of your time discussing trivial matters with your friends.

8. TEST YOURSELF After you finish reading the material, make some questions based on the materials given, and ask them to yourself. If you can not answer the questions satisfactorily, go back and review.

9. DO MORE THAN YOU ARE ASKED If the math teacher gives you five problems, finish ten. If your history teacher asks you eight pages of reading, you read 12 pages. Part of learning is practicing, and the more you practice, the more you learn.


10. MAKE THE LESSONS MEANINGFUL. To make the lessons meaningful, you should like the lessons or identify the usefulness of the lesson in your daily life. If you don’t like the lesson, it will make the learning process difficult. So, realizing, that the usefulness of the lesson will boost your spirit to learn it well.

What is more important is your motivation to study. Whenever you feel that you start to get bored studying, go back and remember the initial reason learning. Why do we go to school? It is because of knowledge, because we want to develop ourselves. Whatever the reason. It should be enough to encourage you to do your best in your studies.