<p>I mean im the type of person that if I love something, I will actively pursue learning it and becoming adept in it. I started playing guitar last year and I’m at the point where I can play progressive metal in one year of playing and compose in the style.</p>
<p>But at the same time, I’m the kind of person who will sleep through a college prep course with a 92-98, but take an honors english course or an AP government course where I couldn’t care less and just do horrible getting low 70s and just not doing well. </p>
<p>I’m also generally able to stay interested in a topic if it is relevant and I hate sticking to the same topic every day, day in and day out. For example, knowing the difference between modernists, transcendentalists, romanticists, w/e ******** has no effect on my ability to close business deals or complete surgeries. I mean I think i may have ad/hd becuase I have trouble concentrating sometimes, even at work, I can’t stay bored.</p>
<p>Now my question is, should I even bother taking APs/Honors that have I have no interest in and how do YOU “study and get good grades”?</p>
<p>“has no effect on my ability to close business deals or complete surgeries.”</p>
<p>if you have trouble concentrating, i wouldn’t go into finance or medical fields. med school is extremely boring, and most of the stuff you learn there you will never need. you’re not going to be closing any deals the first few years you get out of college either. expect monotonous grunt work for the first five years or so before companies allow you to do something important. it’s unrealistic for yourself to think that you can just switch academic mode on and off when you want to. </p>
<p>and i don’t know why you think English class is stupid. it’s communication, and if you fail at that, you’ll fail at life. </p>
<p>to answer your question, if you’re not going to try in a class, try not to take it, but if you maintain that attitude you won’t go very far.</p>
<p>on a lighter note, i am kind of interested in everybody’s study habits.</p>
<p>Well this is coming from a guy who used to get Cs and Bs during middle school and now gets high 90s.</p>
<p>To answer your question, should you take an APs/Honors class that you have no interest in, yes. Why? Well think of the long-term, the end result. Perhaps AP Art History won’t be a prominent resource in the field of surgery or business but nonetheless, it will help you get into a good school to that will into the field of surgery or business. It’s a good way to keep yourself dedicated/concentrated when it comes to boring or literally painful projects. Such as the decision whether you should aim for that A in that precalculus test or end your suffering by getting a good night’s sleep.</p>
<p>As for how I study and get good grades? Develop interest in what you’re learning. Believe it or not, but in my experience, I found that everything I learned at one point has been useful in some way or another. There is no detrimental effect of learning something, but there are lots of benefits. Which leads to my theory that good grades are consisted of the following: a gift in the field you’re studying, dedication/strong work ethics, and an interest in the field. Having two of the three is the requirement for a good grade or success in general.</p>
<p>the way to get good grades is to concentrate on understanding the material rather than getting good grades. for this it helps if you like the subject. but the most important thing is to know when you understand stuff and when you really don’t. i used to get good grades in math by memorizing all the formulas, and i didn’t realize how much i was missing so i never bothered to really learn the subject until later.</p>
<p>throughout high school, my GPA has never dropped once. First trimester, I had a 3.14. senior year I had a 4.0 (all UW).</p>
<p>I found that a large part of improving was in actually studying. For the things I wasn’t interested in (US history), I blindly memorized. For english/history, I made sure that my papers were written well. I would write them over a period of a few days. I’d recommend spending about 3/4 of your time writing the paper, give yourself a rest day (if you have time) and then revise it. I personally like to write the body paragraphs first because I usually don’t know specifically what I am going to talk about. So I can think of ideas while I write. Sometimes a very plain intro/conclusion is sufficient. That is, in both, devote about a sentence to each body paragraph, a sentence to thesis, and more for style if you want.</p>
<p>For math you have 2 options. Either blindly memorize or understand. You can get good grades doing either (depending on the caliber of you class), but I think that understanding is much easier and more fun. I would recommend questioning your teachers, making them justify things (e.g. how do I know that the Pythagorean theorem is true?). Sometimes it helps to see a proof, then later try to reproduce it (don’t try to memorize it- remember the general outline of it and then fill in the blanks yourself). It makes the theorem stick and you really understand it.</p>
<p>For science courses… for bio and chem it is a lot of memorization That’s really it- (AP and high school) chemistry doesn’t really synthesize concepts. For physics, I would recommend checking your answers using common sense/though experiments.</p>
<p>Language- obviously pure memorization. Maybe you can find patterns here and there that will help.</p>
<p>Generally:</p>
<p>Do your homework (if it’s not stupid). Pay attention in class. Study/cram for tests. Give yourself time to write papers.</p>
<p>“chemistry doesn’t really synthesize concepts”
you either haven’t taken AP chem or had a really easy teacher when you took it. i would never compare AP bio to chem. bio is flat memorization while chem is more like a math course.</p>
<p>i agree with everything else you said, i just want to add a few of my tips.
for math i would strongly recommend learning concepts and not memorizing what to do. this is the same with science. </p>
<p>The best way to prepare for English class is to read outside of class. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, just read something like the rolling stone or Q. Your vocab and writing style will improve. </p>
<p>For language, it is pure memorization, but you’ll excel if you practice. It doesn’t have to be active studying. Try to watch 2-3 30 min tv shows per week in the language that you’re studying.</p>
<p>Daily practice is your friend. Review the notes of your core classes for 15 minutes a day, and you won’t have to cram for tests. </p>
<p>Also, besides learning the material, you want to get a good grade. This means taking advantage of the easy points. If your class grade comes from 50% tests/quizzes, 25% projects, 15% homework, and 10% participation, work hard to guarantee you get full credit for homework, participation, and projects. if you do this, you’ll be able to get solid b’s on tests and still walk out of the class with an A.</p>
<p>yea, to the guy who said ap chem is all memorization, your teacher must have been really nice. In my school AP Chem is harder than AP Calc AB or AP Physics or Organic Chem, well its almost equal to Organic Chem.</p>
<p>About math concepts and understanding them, i tried that but its so hard to understand concepts when your teacher gives you homework where the answers to the problems are not given in the back of the god damn book. Yet she has a solutions manual while students dont. We’ll have a 39 minute class that usually gets about 1-3 hours of homework, seriously ***. Some concepts of calc/pre calc were just way to hard for me to understand like demoivre’s, that’s the only one I can remeber >_<</p>
<p>Oh and who ever said I shouldn’t do business, its just that during 9-10th grade I succesfully managed a real live portfolio of stocks listen on AMEX, NYSE, and the OTCBB (high risk, did as a gamble). I’ve also traded currencies on and off.</p>
<p>“to answer your question, if you’re not going to try in a class, try not to take it, but if you maintain that attitude you won’t go very far.”</p>
<p>^this</p>
<p>making over $100,000 and landing nice jobs doesn’t come without hard work. You think studying or work will be fun everyday? Stop dreaming, everybody goes through a grind everyday and if you grow to resent that, you won’t be able to be productive.</p>