How to get better grades

Each year we struggle to get that A grade, but fail miserably. Why is it that some people effortlessly pass exams with good grades, whilst others struggle to barely pass?. The answer lies in how you approach studying.

We view studying as something that should be left to a month before exam. This strategy leads to burnout. Burnout is a state of physical and mental fatigue or exhaustion. During burnout, you will struggle to understand the most basic concepts, which normally you could learn without much effort. The time you have and the amount that you have to study are severely unbalanced. You cannot dedicate sufficient time to each concept, and you tend to improvise. The state of burnout doesn’t come suddenly. It creeps on you slowly, without notice, until eventually, no matter how hard you try, you ,more or less, don’t remember as well . Most of your struggle will go in vain. So, burnout should be avoided at all costs.

In order to counter burnout, one should dedicate sufficient amount of time to studies throughout the year. Practice past exam papers or practice questions to identify areas of weaknesses and study to cover them as early as possible. The earlier you fix the problems, the more time you can dedicate to perfecting your concepts.

Another factor resulting in poor grades, is the failure to study according to your brain. Contrary to popular belief, your brain is not a hard drive. It does not learn through rote memorization. Rather, it learns through associations or metaphors. For example, the expression “time flies”. Logically, time is not a bird, but we tend to give it wings to express how quickly it goes by. You might relate someone, with unkempt,messy hair to a barbarian. You might compare someone who talks very intelligently to Einstein. You can relate a concept to anything at all, anything to your hearts content. The more associations you make, the more you remember.

Over-time, these associations become faster. You will not have to think of them as much, rather they will come automatically to you or faster than they used to. To do this you need to make connections everyday for a period of 30-days without leaving any days. Missing more than a day, means that you should consider restarting the 30-day period.

This makes learning more efficient and enjoyable. However, practice of questions is still important, in order to target weak points and so that steps can be taken to fix them. So the key to getting good grades is making associations and better time management as a start.

Mathematics can be a subject of challenge for most. In order to excel at maths, it is important to develop insights.
Mathematical formulas are based on logic. To understand a formula, one should try to understand what a formula means or why it is important. With the internet, this should not be hard to do, and can help develop a good understanding in the subject. Subjects ,such as maths and accounting, require practice in order to become better.
A good site for understanding maths is betterexplained.com.

Furthermore, examiner reports are also important. Examiner reports detail the mistakes that students made in the previous years of the relevant subject. These reports guide you as to what the examiner requires. Examiner reports are important for any exam which is conducted by a third party, such as the acca.