How to Become a Straight-A Student

by Cal Newport

Don’t do all of your reading.

Always read the assignments from favored sources.

So how do you decide which supplemental readings to review, which to skim, and which to skip? Straight-A students follow this simple hierarchy:

Readings that make an argument are more important than readings that describe an event or person, which are more important than readings that only provide context (i.e., speech transcripts, press clippings).

In a course with no favored sources, readings that directly address the specific topic of the lecture act as the favored sources for the day.

smart technique is to simply write these skipped readings right onto your syllabus as an assignment for a later class.

“If you pay close attention in class and take good notes, much of the reading is often unnecessary.”

First, as with lectures, try to take notes on your computer. They will be more organized and easier to follow later on, when you use them for review. In addition, typing makes it easier to record more and finish faster. Next, carefully read the beginning of the assignment. Look for the question being answered by the author. Note that this is different than a thesis statement. For example, “Why did the Clinton health care plan fail?” is a question. “The Clinton health care plan failed because of resistance from commercial health care providers” is a thesis. In a reading assignment, the question can usually be found in the title or perhaps explained in the first few sentences. Record this in your notes, and label it clearly.

Next, look for the author’s conclusion (the thesis statement).

Skim the entire reading. Don’t take notes yet. Instead, use a pencil to make checkmarks next to important paragraphs that jump out at you. Because you are reading fast, you may miss some points—don’t worry. “Just get the gist of the author’s message and how he is supporting that message with evidence, then move on,” explains Jason, a straight-A student from the University of Pennsylvania. You don’t need to capture everything. Your goal is simply to mark a few solid examples that justify the conclusion as the answer to the question.

Once you have skimmed through the entire reading, go back and find your check marks. For each mark, record in your notes a concise summary of the corresponding point. Label each point in your notes with the page number where you found it.

your goal should be to “read for arguments, not facts.”

Smart students understand that if you’re studying hard, then you’ve done something wrong.

In fact, when faced with a looming quiz or exam, you have to do only two things. First, organize your material intelligently. Second, perform a targeted review of this material.

Before you can conduct any meaningful studying, you must first define the scope of the exam.

what kind of information the professor wants you to know.” To accomplish this goal, answer the following questions: • Which lectures and reading assignments (or problem sets) are fair game? • What type of questions will there be, and how many of each? As Christine from Harvard explains: “It’s helpful to know in advance what kind of knowledge will be asked for on the exam—IDs, dates, broad syntheses of the texts’ major arguments?” • Is the exam open note or open book?

How much time will be available? Does the professor expect the exam to be easy to complete during the test period or a challenge?

Build a Study Guide

For a nontechnical course, once you find out which lectures and reading assignments are fair game for the exam, print out the corresponding notes that you’ve typed up or gather the pages you’ve written on (don’t be afraid to deconstruct your notebook). Cluster these pages into piles, separated by general topic. Clearly label each of these piles with its topic and fasten them together with a paper clip so you can easily transport them without mixing up the pages. This final step is important, since you will be moving to and from your various isolated study spaces once you begin your review. For simplicity, we will refer to these topic-themed piles as “chapters.” Your final study guide, therefore, should contain a chapter, consisting of reading and lecture notes, for each general topic that might be covered on the exam.

Don’t try to organize and study in the same day.

the most effective way to imprint a concept is to first review it and then try to explain it, unaided, in your own words.

To apply the quiz-and-recall method to nontechnical course material, you first need to construct a practice quiz for each chapter in your study guide.

walking around and saying things out loud commits them to memory in a spectacular way.” If it helps, act as if you’re giving a lecture on the subject.

“The physical act of writing and the manipulation of the material in my mind was usually enough to keep things straight,”

Next, put little check marks on your quizzes next to any questions that you had trouble answering. Glance through your study guide to remind yourself of the right answers to these questions. Take a quick break.

Now, repeat the first step, except this time you need to answer only the questions that you marked during your first run-through. Put a new check mark next to the questions that you still have trouble with. Once again, look through your notes to get the right answers, and then take a quick break. Then go back to the practice quiz and try to answer the questions that you marked on your second run-through.

The power of this approach is its efficiency. You spend the least amount of time with the questions that you understand the best, and you spend the most amount of time with the questions that cause you the most trouble. You also have a definite endpoint.

The quiz-and-recall method is powerful because it does not depend on multiple reviews of the same information. Once you’ve articulated an answer out loud in complete sentences, or recorded it clearly with pencil and paper, it will stick in your mind.

separate the task of memorizing from your other review. Spread the work out over many days, and never dedicate too much time to any one sitting with your flash cards. Melanie from Dartmouth recalls how some of her peers would “review their flash cards at any opportunity—eating dinner, waiting in line at an e-mail terminal,” which is the most effective way to get through this tedious task and commit the necessary items to memory.

academic disaster insurance: protection against the unexpected return of those obscure topics that slip by when you doze off for a moment in class. In reality, this insurance policy is nothing more than a simple strategy: Eliminate your question marks. This technique can be employed throughout the term and, over time, significantly reduce the chance that you will be baffled by an unexpected exam question.

If you remember, this strategy suggests that you put a question mark in your notes for any topic that flies by without you really understanding the conclusion.

To prevent this from happening, you need to eliminate these question marks. The key is to start this process well before the exam. If you leave all of these question marks unanswered until you start studying, you will end up spending many extra hours looking up the required explanations. Learning a large quantity of material from scratch during the review process is a mistake made by average students—and you should avoid this.

They provide a solid defense against unclear ideas and will allow you to start the study process with an explanation in mind for all relevant topics.

Ask questions during class.

Develop the habit of talking to your professor briefly after class.

“Talk to the professor after class, or send him an e-mail asking for clarification about questions that arose during his lecture,” suggests

The goal of these defensive tactics is to eliminate your question marks without adding any study time.

The potential pitfalls during an exam are numerous, but the most common are: (1) running out of time and (2) providing answers that, although detailed, don’t fully answer all parts of the question being asked.

Strategy #1: Review First, Answer Questions Later

“I always read through the entire exam first,” explains Robert from Brown. This is good advice—for any exam, your first step should always be to review all of the questions. If it’s an essay exam or a technical exam with a relatively small number of questions, then read each prompt carefully. If the exam is multiple choice or contains many questions, skim through quickly and get a feel for which topics are covered.

This review familiarizes you with the length and relative difficulty of what lies ahead. It also primes your brain for the topics you’ll need to address. “Always scan all the questions,” explains Anna from Dartmouth. “This allows your mind to think ab...

“I lay down very strict time limits for myself on each question.” This strategy goes a long way toward avoiding time trouble; it keeps your attention focused and prevents you from spending too much time on any particular question.

The key to maintaining this keen awareness is to build a time budget. First, take the time allotted for the exam and subtract ten minutes. Next, divide this amount by the number of questions. The result is how long you have to spend on each prompt.

For an exam with a small number of questions, mark right on the test pages the time when you should begin and finish each one. For an exam with many questions, divide the exam into equal fourths, then jot down the time you should begin and end each section. In both cases, these recorded times will keep you updated on how close your current progress matches your predetermined schedule.

Strategy #3: Proceed from Easy to Hard

the most effective way to tackle an exam is to answer the easiest questions first,

Without the pressure of other questions looming in the background, you can take a more relaxed approach. You might not know the best answer, but you can spend some time to devise a reasonable answer. Because you have nothing else left to finish, you can spend the remainder of the time polishing this answer, thinking, and repolishing. The result is the strongest possible outcome given your state of preparation.

Strategy #4: Outline Essays

“Usually, you can isolate three or four mini-questions from a single essay question.” Underline each of these mini-questions; this will help you flesh out your outline and avoid an incomplete answer. “Then, outline on paper (not in your head) the way that you will use what you know to answer these mini-questions,”

Record only a few key words for each point to save time and space.