Why You’re Not a Straight-A Student (& How to Become One)

Why You’re Not a Straight-A Student (& How to Become One)

Getting straight-A’s in school can feel like an impossible task, but most students make it harder than it needs to be. If you’re not getting the grades that you want, the problem isn’t always time or effort. Instead, it is often your strategies and your approach to studying that are failing you.

Here are 5 reasons why you’re not getting straight A’s and what you should do instead.

-You’re Approaching Studying Wrong

-You’re Not Optimizing for Memory Consolidation

-Your Critical Thinking is Underdeveloped

-You’re Not Studying at the Optimal Time

-You’ve Taken on an Identity

 

1 | You’re Approaching Studying Wrong

The first reason is that you’re approaching studying the wrong way.

Students often look at studying as a numbers game. They believe that the more hours they put into preparing for an exam, the better their grade will be. Although there is certainly some truth to this, it doesn’t tell the full story.

If you only studied 5 hours per week for an exam and didn’t get the grade you want, you might conclude that you didn’t study enough. For the next exam, you might study 10-, 15-, or 20 hours a week. Although you may achieve the result that you want simply by studying more, this isn’t a sustainable approach – especially when you start getting into more challenging courses. There are only so many hours each week that you can allocate to studying and you will eventually reach a point where you don’t have enough time to just “study more. Instead, a better approach is to reflect on your study strategies and strive to make them more efficient.

Your goal should be to achieve the most amount of learning in the least amount of time.

Most students employ passive learning techniques such as reading through textbooks or notes. Although these methods are easy and comfortable, they are also highly inefficient. They simply aren’t a good “bang-for-your-buck” in terms of the amount of learning you achieve vs the amount of time you spend.

Instead, you should employ the Feynman technique(click here for details: https://the-feynman-technique)and use practice questions.

2 | You’re Not Optimizing for Memory Consolidation

The second reason you’re not getting straight A’s is that you aren’t optimizing for memory consolidation.

A large part of being efficient with your studying comes down to retaining what you’ve learned. Spending hours reading through textbooks, doing flashcards, or going through practice questions doesn’t do you much good if you can’t remember any of it.

One of the most important things you can do to improve your memory is to get enough sleep.

Sleep deprivation on the night following learning was found to negatively impact memory. Some studies have also shown that studying just before sleep aids in memory retention compared to studying earlier in the day. In addition, better quality, longer duration, and more consistent sleep patterns have been correlated with better academic performance. That being said, there was no relation between sleep measures on the night before a test and test performance. Instead, sleep duration and quality for the month and the week before a test correlated with better grades.

Cognitively demanding courses, like physics, math, organic chemistry, or neuroscience require you to be fresh and work through novel problems – not just regurgitate information – so a fresh mind is critical.

3 | Your Critical Thinking is Underdeveloped

The third reason you’re not getting straight-A’s is that your critical thinking is underdeveloped.

Although your ability to work through complex problems and think critically is linked to your sleep, it is also affected by your study strategies. 

One of the best ways to develop your critical thinking skills is through practice problems, but it involves a slightly different approach than most students use.

To get the most out of each practice session, you need to approach each question as if it were the real thing. If you don’t know how to solve it, don’t just read the correct answer and explanation. Give it considerable effort before you review an equation or other helpful piece of information.

And if that’s still not enough to answer the question confidently, go back through your notes and create your perfect answer. Only then should you check the correct answer and see how yours compares. If you still get the question wrong after all of that, then you know that there’s a major gap in your understanding that needs to be addressed.

Although this method of going through practice questions takes longer than the normal technique of viewing the correct answer, reading the explanation, and moving on, it leaves you with a much better understanding of the material. Shortcutting by viewing the correct answer and explanation when you’re stuck severely limits your rate of progress and prevents you from deeply understanding the material.

Making mistakes and learning from them is the whole point of practice problems.

Approaching them in this way allows you to hone your critical thinking skills so you’re prepared for anything on exam day.

4 | You’re Not Studying at the Optimal Time

The next reason is that you’re not optimizing for your energy state.

Everybody has a natural rhythm to their energy throughout the day. They are more focused during certain times of the day and less focused during others. The trick is to pay attention to your own rhythm and find what times you are most efficient in and what times you are not.

For instance, I begin my deep work block around 8:00 AM. For me, I am freshest and think most clearly in the mornings. As such, I am able to do my best-focused work at this time. In the afternoons, however, I find myself less motivated or willing to put up with difficult work.

But everyone is different. You may find yourself most focused in the afternoon and are ready to hit the books first thing after lunch. It’s all about finding what works best for you and your energy state.

If you’re not a morning person, don’t expect yourself to get your best work done at 7 AM. Trying to do so is setting yourself up for failure. Similarly, if you are a morning person, waiting until 9 PM when you’re exhausted at the end of the day is also less likely to be fruitful.

5 | You’ve Taken on an Identity

The last reason that you’re not a straight-A student is that you’ve taken on an identity about what you’re good at and what you’re bad at.

When you identify as bad at something, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Here’s an example. Let’s say you take on an identity that you’re bad at math. Now, whenever you take action to improve at math, you’ll experience cognitive dissonance because your actions conflict with your identity. You tell yourself, “why am I studying when I know I’m bad at math?” As a result, you’re more likely to get frustrated and quit. We don’t like contradicting ourselves. If our identity is that we are bad at something, it makes it much more difficult to improve.

Instead, you should avoid identifying as good or bad at things and identify as the type of student that is always improving. By adopting this sort of growth mindset, you’re less likely to get caught up in failures and more likely to learn from your failures.

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check my piece on What Separates the Top 1% of students click here 👉 : 

Or, check out the whole series on tips and tricks to be the best version of yourself! Click here 👉: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/be-best-version-of-yourself.html

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Top ten practices to fetch better marks during exams: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/2022/10/top-ten-tips-for-exams-fetch-better.html

Research-Backed Study Strategies: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/tips-and-tricks.html

Brief Summaries of Best Motivational Books for Students : https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/book-reviews-to-keep-you-motivated.html

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ICSE Class 10 All Subjects Notes: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/icse-class-10all-subjects.html

ICSE Class 9 All Subjects Notes: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/icse-classes-9-10-all-subjects.html

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ISC Class 12 All Subjects Notes: https://novakidhs.blogspot.com/p/isc-classes-11-12-all-subjects.html