How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less Paperback – December 26, 2006

I bought How to Become a Straight-A Student for my reference and to add to my bookshelf, and it’s an absolute gem. The advice is straightforward, practical, and based on real student experiences. It offers smart strategies to study more efficiently without burning out. I love how it focuses on working smarter, not harder. A valuable resource I’ll be referring to throughout my academic journey.

When I was taking 4 classes at my local community college, I tried to follow the part of the book that said just to learn math by examples. I ended having to drop the class because at first I was actually ahead of the professor. Then I tried this stupid book's technique of learning by examples and I ended up falling behind. The same can be said of "What smart students know" it's actually a good technique (smart students), but you end up spending hours thinking up questions. Questions can be a part of the process, but it can't be the whole process. I just bought an online course than is way better than both of these combined. It's so good. The point I'm at in the course you can memorize up to 50 items in reverse and forward. You can also tell which place in the list. An example could beThe order of my hallway:Dog = front doorCat = wallDuck = light switchPrinter = holderHitler = chairMAO = rugGoku = ceiling lightKurrin = mirrorGohan = heaterFrieza = paintingYou would then connect / visualize each word / picture with a part of your house. The rule is to visualize each for only 6 seconds while recalling can only take 6 seconds. If you miss one you have to do the six second process again until you make no mistakes.P.S. I'm not telling anyone the name of the course or where to buy it. I want to be ahead of all other students.Edit: I'm back in college taking two college level courses. While I don't agree with everything in this book (I have to re-read it) I agree with 80-85% of the methods used in this book that I remember. Such as not doing the reading he was right. I haven't done the reading in my psychology 101 class and have only focused on taking / memorizing / learning the notes and while I haven't gotten a grade yet, I actually feel I'm learning enough and today in class I note notes from a documentary we watched. The professor said to do the reading for chapter 2 of the textbook. I'm not even going to do it. I'm going to just take notes in class then go over the reading. I did this for my 1st set of notes and I didn't understand something in the lecture notes. I ended up re-reading that / part / example [it was on the scientific method].I remember from taking my developmental math class that the professor was actually doing examples (even though I couldn't figure out from what part of the book they were from and / or I couldn't write every example like he said) If I had just asked questions and either watched videos on Youtube I would've probably remembered the material from that class.I'll do another edit once I'm done with classes. I'm also going to write / provide a list of books that I think are good for learning and have good advice for college.Edit: I ended up trying to do the advice from this book and if I didn't look up the answers for the test for my psychology class I wouldn't be in college today. I'm not saying that all of this book is bad but I went from thinking that 85% of it is good to now thinking that 50% of this book is good. The other half is crap. Such as the technique for Q/E/C he doesn't give any examples or enough examples. The other advice like making your own problem sets I wouldn't have thought of. Even though this is an all right technique your wasting time because you can just practice doing other peoples problems (like those online or from a professor) or do Bullet point concept from another book I read (I'm going to provide a list once I'm done with this review). The one technique that is very good is the lecture technique he mentions in the book. For some reason, this technique helps with putting material into memory. His section on writing papers is also very good. His explanation on how to prepare for and take exams is also good. Also, he should have made the book more visual and put actual writing from actual students other than that it's an all right book.Here's the list of books I've read (so far) that will most likely get you A'sCollege Ruleshttps://www.amazon.com/College-Rules-4th-Survive-Succeed/dp/1607748525/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530133408&sr=1-1&keywords=college+rulesGuaranteed 4.0https://www.amazon.com/Guaranteed-Follow-3-Step-Plan-Dont/dp/0974264806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530134451&sr=1-1&keywords=guranteed+4.0How to study in collegehttps://www.amazon.com/How-Study-College-Walter-Pauk/dp/1133960782/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530134633&sr=1-4&keywords=how+to+study+in+collegeThe only book I've read from cover to cover is GT 4.0 it's probably the best in my opinion because the system in this book will get you A's. The only reason last semester I didn't get A's was because I didn't follow the system to the t. If you follow the GT 4.0 system to a t and don't get all A's she'll give you $100.Hope this helps.Edit 2020:From what I remember reading this book, this applies to college level courses and even at the same time I tried using his question / evidence technique while taking a psy101 class and couldn't do it. Also he's right to a very large degree about living off of lecture notes. Living off of the lecture notes IMHO can only be done if it's a science science class or a college level math class. I'm currently taking a pre-req class and the professor explains everything. Along with the Guaranteed 4.0 technique this is a pretty decent book.

This book is not that revolutionary, but very helpful. It essentially tackles three main problem areas for college students: 1) time management skills, 2) studying and exam prep, and 3) essay writing. Some of these are common sense things that many people resist implementing. If you are struggling with college, or are a high school senior unsure of what to expect in college, this book is very helpful.The true value in this book, for me at least, was in providing the satisfaction that these strategies worked. I would often start out a semester by doing the things listed in the book. I would manage my time, study effectively for exams, thoughtfully plan out papers and assignments. Halfway through the semester, I always had straight As. But as finals crept up, I would panic. Since every other student spent hours in the library studying, I abandoned the effective strategies to follow suit. As a result, my final exam grades were inconsistent and my final papers were always rushed. This book gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I can trust these time saving strategies. You do not need to spend hours and hours on projects to get a good grade. It's okay to not spend hours in the library studying for a final. Trust that these strategies work, and enjoy your stress-free semester.But, the book does have faults. While this book provides very useful information, I feel it misses two aspects of the college experience that can have a large impact on your grade: presentations and group projects. (Also the dreaded group presentation). While you can implement some of these strategies in these situations, it would be nice to know how top students manage working in group project settings, especially those that require research. I can't tell you how many times I've been in a group project where half the group doesn't show up to meetings, members refuse to do their work, or people drop the class halfway through the project. I still haven't figured out an adequate way to deal with these situations besides just doing the work myself at the last minute.Bottom line, this book is well worth the money. Whether you are a college senior or a high school senior and everything in between, this book will help you as long as you faithfully implement the strategies. But do search out other resources for help with managing group projects.

But it's never late to learn this techniques and pass them on to your children and others that may need them so they will have better results and a better life.

This book presents a collection of actionable methods for taking notes, studying, and managing a busy schedule. I find the section on time management is useful even outside of an academic context.

As a freshman at an extremely rigorous high school, my son still found concepts in this book incredibly helpful, especially the subjects addressed in part 1, such as avoiding “pseudo-working” and how to combat procrastination (something he has struggled with continuously throughout his life). Highly recommend this book to anyone trying to up their performance and stay sane at the same time.