here are three study hacks i learnt from top students
and how you can apply it to your studies as well
I was in my final year of high school when my mother told me, “Zar, the world is always evolving. Everyone is in a rush to learn something and to become something. You must steal the behaviours of successful people and implement them in your life.”
Since those words have been spoken by a woman whose words hold the most importance to me, I have slowly enacted them into my life.
My entire childhood, I wasn’t a straight A student. No, I was somewhere along the lines of average. Contrary to most students’ experiences, the curriculum I studied had the most emphasis in two years of my academic life: the tenth and twelfth grades.
In my tenth grade, I didn’t get into the classes I originally wanted, which were medicine. That was my first stroke of pure disappointment and regret. Regret of not doing better, of not reaching my full capabilities, and not working hard enough. I felt the world was going to end for fifteen-year-old me.
Soon enough, eleventh grade rolled by and my grades improved.. a lot.
As someone who scored multiple B’s and one C in one of the most important exams of her life, she ended up with straight A’s for the first time since primary school.
The words that my mother spoke were just when tenth grade ended and I was preparing to enter a new world, one that would last for two years.
Since then, I transformed from “oh she’s just another student” to people actually coming up to me in class and wondering how I got full marks in exams.
I feel as though it’s only right to share what I did to help you truly exceed this year. I would understand that many of you are starting your summer break. If this year, you too are appearing for an important exam or you hit the light bulb earlier than I and want to get good grades regardless of whether it’s an important year, then this post is going to help you like I wish someone had told me.
1. Learn from actual learners.
When you type up the word “how to get good grades” on Google, you get 453,000,000 results within half a second. That’s 453,000,000 resources.
I would suggest you learn either from educators who teach you specifically the type of curriculum you’re studying, like IGCSE or A levels. Or you can learn from educators who post general tips.
It’s much easier to find dedicated channels for the program you’re studying for because there are fewer results, you can ask your seniors to refer you to one, and there isn’t much variation when it comes to the actual content.
Now for general tips, like the morning routine for students or how to become an academic weapon, these types of videos target a general audience of just students. It doesn’t matter if you’re a high schooler, a college student, or completing your PhD. Everyone wants to become the best version of themselves and you don’t want to be the only train missing it.
I personally have watched a lot of study videos. I have done this because I am a student. When I was in dire need of motivation, YouTube was the first place I’d head to or because my blog is about studying, so although we are working on different mediums, I’d check out to see what they are doing.
Some of the best YouTubers that I personally really like and follow their advice are Fayefilms and Study To Success.
They have practical tips that ACTUALLY work. They don’t just repeat the same things over and over again with a different video title. No, sir, they produce short (or maybe some long-form videos), with a clear message revolving around it: helping students around the world.
2. Blurting method.
I learnt this method from my brothers, who had stellar high school performances (both of them topped a subject), studying and carving their own careers as each day goes by.
I memorized my entire political science and economics textbook using this technique last year. I got 97/100 and 82/100 respectively for each subject.
Oh, and I did the same for Mass Media, and I ended up scoring a centum. In the curriculum that I studied, there was a lot of theoretical knowledge involved, so essentially I had to memorize a 200+ page handbook to get this grade.
How does it work? I made a whiteboard sheet so you can better understand it.
I would strongly suggest that you either download or screenshot this image.
If you are studying social sciences or just any subject that has a lot of content, this is the foolproof, guaranteed method of having it stuck in your brain.
And before you ask, yes, it does take a lot of time. So you need to start doing this either at the beginning of the academic year or at least a month before.
If you want a video where I explain this more in-depth, leave a comment below.
3. Make study goals.
You need to have an idea of what the overall percentage you want to get is. Here is the deal: imagine you are getting the highest possible grade. So if you have a GPA system, think you got 4.0. If it's a grading system, imagine you got straight A's.
I literally spent hours thinking of how I would react after seeing my grades or giving the valedictorian speech. It sounds crazy but it worked— although I didn't give the valedictorian speech, I did receive multiple awards.
Calling it manifesting, day dreaming, or anything. It worked.
Take a paper and note the subjects you are studying, the expected marks you think you'll get, and the actual marks you got.
I have attached the exact paper that I used and filled out throughout the year.
You can see that as the academic year went by, I got a little more realistic only to pull out all the stops for my finals.
You only need a paper, a pen, and an impossible dream that you will work hard to make come true.
That concludes today's post. I hope you found this helpful as much as I had fun writing it. I wish someone had told me these tips at the beginning of my high school so I wouldn't have wasted time going through a loophole of videos, guides, and just wasting my time.
Let's glow up, together ❤️
Zar
Glow Up Grades