Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Making good grades- is it a skill or a gift?

Rangsk · 11-07-2004, 01:59 AM

I haven't read through all the comments, so you'll have to forgive me if I've repeated anything, but I thought I'd give my view before reading too many replies. As you may notice as you read this, I have little respect for the American highschool system.

I was a mostly-A student in Highschool, but I barely studied. Because of honors courses, my weighted GPA was 4.5 or something like that, unweighted it was 3.9 or so. I'm the guy you hate because I did better on the test even though you studied 10x as much as me. Right now I'm in college (UC San Diego, third year CS major), and I just had three miderms that I barely studied for (one of them I only looked at my notes long enough to make the sheet of equations that was allowed, one I looked over my notes for maybe 30 minutes, and the other I didn't study at all)... I believe I did very well on them, and probably better than many of the students who studied. Are you pissed at me yet?

What's my secret? I don't really have one. However, I will try and gives some insight into A students, as I hang out with many of them.

There are definately multiple kinds of A students. I'll list three of them, though I'm sure there's more... these apply almost exclusively to highschool, as I believe college does a much better job at educating than highschool did.

1) "The sellout" - the student who truly believes that the system works, and so they work with the system. He does the homework because he thinks it's actually necessary, he studies religiously for tests, etc.

2) "The hard worker" - the student who may not have the natural talent for the subject, but wants so desperately to succeed that he manages to eek out an A anyway. This student studies until it hurts, doesn't get sleep, and goes in for extra help. This student many times starts depending on the teacher and other A students to spoon-feed the information to them at an excrutiatingly slow pace. He gets As because he holds the rest of the class back, and makes the teacher go slow enough that he is able to get an A.

3) "The Above-It-All" - This student is probably generally intelligent, a very fast learner, and most definately lazy when it comes to school work. I think I relate most to this kind of student. He does just enough to get an A - he knows exactly what his limits are. He does all the work, but does the bare minimum, and most certaintly does it at the very last minute where he knows he can still finish it. He mostly teaches himself the content, as the teacher goes way too slowly trying to appease the A students that fit category #2 - the ones who need it spoonfed. He does not put a priority to the education the school gives him, and instead educates himself on what he finds interesting and relevent. He is in control of his own education, which keeps him interested, and has a birds-eye view of the system and knows how to beat it and knows what the teachers want. Often, he'll teach himself the material while taking the test. Note that he does very well in the math and science classes, but doesn't do as well in English/Literature/History classes that require reading and memorization. Depending on the value he puts on the "A", he may or may not actually work hard in the classes that require memorization.

Now, to the original poster, here's something I have to say to you. You get Bs. Whoop-de-doo. First of all, if colleges didn't put so much damn importance on grades, I'd tell you that As weren't worth it. However, they do, and college is incredibly important if you want a real education, so I'm going to give you some advice for As. Wake up and smell the coffee! Highschool is slooooowwwww. They spoonfeed you everything - you just have to accept it. If you just relaxed and realized this, then maybe you'd be able to retain the content better. Most B students would be A students if they knew how to take a test. Most of them simply freak out before, during and after it, get stressed, study way too much, and by doing so end up hurting themselves.

That's my advice. Take it or leave it. If you want to just call me an asshole and listen to the people who say "repetition, repetition, repetition" be my guest. I say you're just hurting yourself if you spend 3 hours studying something where you just have to plug constants into an equation.

11-07-2004, 01:59 AM	#57 (permalink)
Rangsk Crazy Location: San Diego, CA	I haven't read through all the comments, so you'll have to forgive me if I've repeated anything, but I thought I'd give my view before reading too many replies. As you may notice as you read this, I have little respect for the American highschool system. I was a mostly-A student in Highschool, but I barely studied. Because of honors courses, my weighted GPA was 4.5 or something like that, unweighted it was 3.9 or so. I'm the guy you hate because I did better on the test even though you studied 10x as much as me. Right now I'm in college (UC San Diego, third year CS major), and I just had three miderms that I barely studied for (one of them I only looked at my notes long enough to make the sheet of equations that was allowed, one I looked over my notes for maybe 30 minutes, and the other I didn't study at all)... I believe I did very well on them, and probably better than many of the students who studied. Are you pissed at me yet? What's my secret? I don't really have one. However, I will try and gives some insight into A students, as I hang out with many of them. There are definately multiple kinds of A students. I'll list three of them, though I'm sure there's more... these apply almost exclusively to highschool, as I believe college does a much better job at educating than highschool did. 1) "The sellout" - the student who truly believes that the system works, and so they work with the system. He does the homework because he thinks it's actually necessary, he studies religiously for tests, etc. 2) "The hard worker" - the student who may not have the natural talent for the subject, but wants so desperately to succeed that he manages to eek out an A anyway. This student studies until it hurts, doesn't get sleep, and goes in for extra help. This student many times starts depending on the teacher and other A students to spoon-feed the information to them at an excrutiatingly slow pace. He gets As because he holds the rest of the class back, and makes the teacher go slow enough that he is able to get an A. 3) "The Above-It-All" - This student is probably generally intelligent, a very fast learner, and most definately lazy when it comes to school work. I think I relate most to this kind of student. He does just enough to get an A - he knows exactly what his limits are. He does all the work, but does the bare minimum, and most certaintly does it at the very last minute where he knows he can still finish it. He mostly teaches himself the content, as the teacher goes way too slowly trying to appease the A students that fit category #2 - the ones who need it spoonfed. He does not put a priority to the education the school gives him, and instead educates himself on what he finds interesting and relevent. He is in control of his own education, which keeps him interested, and has a birds-eye view of the system and knows how to beat it and knows what the teachers want. Often, he'll teach himself the material while taking the test. Note that he does very well in the math and science classes, but doesn't do as well in English/Literature/History classes that require reading and memorization. Depending on the value he puts on the "A", he may or may not actually work hard in the classes that require memorization. Now, to the original poster, here's something I have to say to you. You get Bs. Whoop-de-doo. First of all, if colleges didn't put so much damn importance on grades, I'd tell you that As weren't worth it. However, they do, and college is incredibly important if you want a real education, so I'm going to give you some advice for As. Wake up and smell the coffee! Highschool is slooooowwwww. They spoonfeed you everything - you just have to accept it. If you just relaxed and realized this, then maybe you'd be able to retain the content better. Most B students would be A students if they knew how to take a test. Most of them simply freak out before, during and after it, get stressed, study way too much, and by doing so end up hurting themselves. That's my advice. Take it or leave it. If you want to just call me an asshole and listen to the people who say "repetition, repetition, repetition" be my guest. I say you're just hurting yourself if you spend 3 hours studying something where you just have to plug constants into an equation. __________________ "Don't believe everything you read on the internet. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." -- Douglas Adams