The Economist Magazine recently reported that a male university graduate will make $82,000 more in his working lifetime than his non-university graduate peer. This includes the cost of tuition, lost wages while studying as well as extra taxes paid. What this simply means is that it pays to get better grades.

But getting better grades is not just about winging it – you need to be systematic and discipline about it. My study book and this blog are great way to learn to get better grades with less effort. My study book comes with many bonus materials that will help you – go to the product page now and check it out.

Today’s post is from John Ruiz who wants to share his recent results after buying my study book and applying just 2 strategies. This is the dialogue I had with John…

Hello Dr. Dussault!

I recently bought your study book and after reading it and incorporating only 2 of your strategies I have improved my grades in Math. I scored a 115 A++ on my Honors Algebra 2 test and a 113 A++ on my Honors Pre-calculus test as well. Thank you for your excellent study guide – it will help me not only now, but in the future as well.

Now that’s a great testimonial, but it doesn’t help you does it?

So I asked John what study strategies he used:

Exam Study Tip #1:

First, I used the strategies for identifying exactly what was going to be on my next math test. I paid attention to the subtle hints that the teacher gave about what would be on the test.

Exam Study Tip #2:

I also referred to past exams and found that some of the extra credit problems were taken from the book we use in class. Realizing this, I was able to practice the exact problems that would be on the test and as a result got the highest grade in class on that test — 113. Without those two strateges I would not have scored that well. I used the same two strategies to get a 115 on my other math test ( I take Honors Trig and Alg. 2). I’m exited to try out more strategies and improve exponentially overtime. Thank you.

So there you have it, two simple study tips that will help you get the best grades with the least amount of effort!

Today’s post is from a 35 year old student struggling with math. His question is not all that uncommon.

Hello there,

My question is Math the reason that I’m struggling.  I’m 35 years old and this is my second semester in college and I’m retaking Math again because the first semester I failed and I’m about the same way this semester… Now my Teacher said that we can make corrections on the tests and get a better score now. I got a month to go in school. So my question is what is the easyest way to study for a math Test or or just to understand what the teacher is saying?

This is a great question that has several answers:

Study Tip #1: Don’t repeat the mistakes of the past

Read More »»

The Pareto Principle also called the 80/20 rule is one of the most powerful study techniques I teach in my study book. Simply put, success in school is about knowing WHAT to study and WHEN. In my study book, I combine that with a concept from the 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People that takes away all the guesswork for you. It’s priceless to any student stressed about about exams, lab reports, quizzes and term papers.

Read More »»

Today’s post is a funny diagram that begs the question “How should you study for exams?” In my study book, I explain this in Chapter 8 How to determine what will be on your next exam and Chapter 9 How to ace exams each and every time. Click on the hyperlinks to get your copy of my study book now, otherwise this chart will unfortunately continue to represent the stress of taking exams.

How Not To Study For Exams

This was sent to me by Andrew Powell in Montreal, Canada. If you come across diagrams, charts or illustrations like these – please send them to me and I’ll make sure everyone knows you sent it to me. Don’t forget that my study book has been sold to thousands of students from all over the world representing 29 different countries!

If you are going back to school, are in school or are studying for your certification in any vocational trade, you will need to know how to study.  The fact is that almost everyone hates studying!

Learning how to study isn’t something most of us think about.  The good news is that you can learn how to study effectively, if you follow the proven systems, tips and tools found in my ebook Get The Best Grades With the Least Amount of Effort.

Just like working out at the gym.  You can train your brain and build your study endurance and stamina over time.

Some key study tips to get your started:

1. Get to know your schedule - start blocking out time to study.  This will help your brain and body get into the habit of studying on a regular basis.

2. Only study when you are rested. It doesn’t do you any good to try to commit things to memory when you are exhausted.  You are wasting your time, and the information will just slip away.

3. Study where there are no distractions – libraries and quiet rooms are great, recreation areas are not.

4. Take notes in class – this helps you remember, but also points out important points when you are reviewing.

Try this study strategy – it’s a proven study tip learnt from my years of experience.

Survey means to scope out and know what type of exam you are studying for. Asking questions helps you to understand what the answers are. When reading, be active, include graphs and charts.  Stop periodically to go over relationships and recite key answers in your head – literally say them in your head.  Reviewing simply means to re-read some of the things you’ve covered to make sure you still have a good understanding of the material.

Better learning habits will only make your life easier in the long run!

Additional resources for students who want to accelerate their learning can also be found on the Get Better Grades website.

Building endurance and stamina to sustain your newfound study skills is covered in more detail in Chapter 9 of my ebook Get Best Grades with the Least Amount of Effort. Get it now to start saving time studying and improve your grades THIS WEEK.

Make sure you also consider my Speed Learning Video and Speed Reading Video products – to truely bolster your study efficiency.

Are you one of those who always places more importance on recreation rather than studying? Do you tend to put your studies off until tomorrow? If you are, who could blame you, because nobody in their right mind would want to stay in studying, rather than having a fun night out on the town with their mates.

But if you learn how to study for a test, how to study for an exam or just how to study better – it can make the study experience all the more enjoyable.

As humans, we all prefer the fun things in life rather than the monotonous chores we’re always faced with. The only problem though, is that putting things off until the next day will nearly always result in MORE STRESS!

Writing down and maintaining a priority study list and working through it accordingly is a far better solution. A list not only helps to ensure you don’t forget anything, it also allows you to work through tasks in a logical order. The benefit of following this method is that for the most part, you’ll actually end up having more free time to enjoy yourself!

While many people tend to think that they should complete all the small tasks first, before tackling the big important ones, in reality it works the other way around. Providing you tackle all the worst jobs first, the small jobs will be a breeze and before you know it, you’ll have quality free time on your hands.

Likewise, if you have a specific task which you know will take longer than average, make a commitment to tackle it at a certain time and make sure you’ve set aside enough time to do it.

The benefits of making a study list and actually sticking to it are many, especially nowadays when so many people have to make time for their studies in between doing other life chores. The solution to managing your time is all about working smarter, rather than working harder.

Other study skill activities, study skill tips and study skill techniques are outlined in the Get The Best Grades with the Least Amount of Effort ebook available for order online.

Admittedly, what works for you may not work for someone else. I explain why this is and what to do about it in Chapter 5 of my ebook Get The Best Grades With the Least Amount of Effort.

The truth is though, the list method ALWAYS WORKS, providing you make any necessary adjustments in order to best meet your own requirements. With a little bit of experimenting, you’ll soon discover the formula that suits you best.

Tips like this and other study shortcuts are covered in more depth in chapter 7 of my ebook Get The Best Grades With the Least Amount of Effort.

Make sure you subscribe to this blog so you don’t miss out on important study tips and ideas to save money such as >buy cheap text books online from a marketplace featuring thousands of sellers.

Wendell in the Philipines wants to know how he can improve his grades for the Bar Exam. Simple. BUY MY Study Book. It costs less than a textbook and is GUARANTEED to improve your grades. it’s filled with tips and techniques to get better grades ‘instantly’.

Why waste your time like your classmates? Why not get the shortcut to top grades at the Bar Exam?

__________________________________________________________________

Dr Dussault,

I’d like to ask if you could provide me tips on how to improve my study habits or shall I say to start establishing it. Im actually preparing  for the Philippine bar examinations this coming September 2009. But I really don’t know how to set a study plan for my review. I must admit that do not have a good foundation in the four year of studies in law school. Could you provide me with materials and information that could help me go through it and be able to start my study review properly.

Thanks.

Wendell

Everything you need is in my study book called Get The Best Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort. It comes with a Speed Learning Video Program as a FREE BONUS.

If you really want to get good grades for your Bar Exam, you should learn to speed read – my Speed Reading Video Program guarantees you’ll double your reading speed in less than 2 hours.

Image all the time you’ll have to review, take notes and MEMORISE for your Bar Exam if you can Speed Read!

Listen to this short message from Emil… Sometimes it’s another person’s breakthrough that can spark your own as well as motivate you to take action!

_______________________________________________________

I don’t get As but, before I got the book I just got Ds

But after buying your I got a C+ on a math test!

The book has changed me!

Thanks Marc!!!

_______________________________________________________

This book is so simple and easy to understand that it WILL START you on the path to The Best Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort!

Cramming – Don’t Do It!

Time can really get to you when you are trying to study. Many people wait until the last minute and they end up trying to cram all the information in within a few hours.

So, this brings up an important issue – DOES CRAMMING ACTUALLY WORK?

When people are preparing for a test or exam, often cramming will turn into a habit that is overused. Many students resort to cramming for a variety of reasons self-justifying our behaviour with the lie that we have busy schedule… Am I right?

In many cases, cramming can be RISKY, since it ends up CAUSING STRESS FOR NO GOOD REASON!

As such, you end up making your brain work even harder in a shorter period of time, than it would if you were doing routine study. If you cram on a frequent and regular basis, it can actually become a HEALTH RISK.

One of my engineering school classmates had to drop out because of study-related, stress-induced health problems thinking he could take some time off and come back – that didn’t happen. Once out of school, he ended up ‘taking it easy’ with a less ambitious crowd and well, the rest is history. Not only did he not get back to Engineering, he never stepped back into a university classroom.

When possible, you should definitely use other methods of studying – other than cramming.

Not sure where to find great ideas? Consider reading my revolutionary learning e-book “Get Better Grades with the Least Amount of Effort.” It offers a lot of helpful knowledge, proven study tips, techniques and strategies that can help you study more effectively and get better grades.

SO DOES CRAMMING EVER WORK?

When you are healthy, well rested and don’t have a lot of “other stresses” in your life, the brain may deal quite well with a bit of cramming that occurs in the last minutes or hours of study before an important exam or quiz.

However, in most cases, if it works at all, you usually only end up with GRADES THAT ARE AVERAGE, instead of the BEST GRADES you could achieve if you studied more effectively.

One of the main problems with cramming is that you never get a great grasp of all the information and the relationship groups of information may have with each other – those inter-relationships are usually what teachers put in the exam!

Cramming can also lead to CONFUSION. Sometimes it can make information you already know even more confusing. You’ll also find that it’s hard to put the facts in your long-term memory as you are probably dealing with FATIGUE and FRUSTRATION as well.

If you don’t want to put your mind through all this, then make sure you avoid cramming for your exams and is you DO cram, you use my strategies to make the best of it!

It doesn’t matter whether you are studying in high school, college or business. If you are looking for ways to study more effectively it’s well worth checking out my ebook “Get Better Grades with the Least Amount of Effort.”

Onward and upward!
Marc

P.S. If you have any personal experiences or feedback on cramming, post it here on the blog as a comment!

When we first begin school, our parents and our teachers tell us that we should set aside a specific amount of time to study each day. Don’t make this mistake!

Many people continue to study by giving themselves an allocated time per day or per week to study a certain subject, all because they don’t know how to study any differently.

If you study with this “time” objective in mind – work will expland to fill the available time. If you give yourself two hours to read a chapter, guess what – that’s how long it will take.

If you are after results (and let’s face it we all are) change your approach to study by learning by objectives, not by setting yourself a timeframe.

This doesn’t mean that you should cut back on the amount of time you spend studying, it just means that you will be more focused on the outcome of your study rather than the time allocated to do it.

It sounds logical right? Most of my study tips are!

This study shortcut (found in Chapter 7 “Studying shortcuts guaranteed to work wonders”) and other great study tips, techniques and strategies can be found in my e-book Getter Better Grades with the Least Amount of Effort.

These will help you study more effectively and provide you with the short cuts to ensure you get better grades with the least amount of effort every time!

Onward and upward!

Dr Marc Dussault

P.S. If you have your own favourite section or chapter or if you have any questions, post it here on the blog as a comment and I’ll give you direct feedback, consider it a personal tutorial – at no cost!

Whether you are thinking about saving your grades or you just feel as though you need a bit of a boost as the semester wears on, you will find that one of the simplest things you can do to get your grades up and to keep them up is to read your materials before you go to class.

It seems simple, but the truth is that reading this information beforehand can give you an impressive edge when it comes to understanding the course material and to helping it sink in.

Doing your reading will go a long way towards facilitating a better understanding of the lecture materials.  The truth of it is, that the lecture and the text are meant to be complementary, not repetitions of each other. Reading ahead will help you fill in the blanks during the lecture.

With so many of us in competitive class environments, you will find that reading ahead can give you a head start on a number of things. If there is something that is puzzling you in the text, you will discover that you can ask questions when they are relevant and fresh in your teacher’s mind.

This will get you a better response than if you are going to be reading the material late and then getting to it weeks after it was discussed. Reading ahead can also help you understand the concepts more thoroughly.

You will find that as you read, you will start to get a grasp on what is happening with the information, and then what your teacher says in class later on will further emphasize it. Think about how much more effective a student you will be if you simply read ahead before going to class!

There are plenty of great and easy study tips like this one in Get Better Grades with the Least Amount of Effort, the most comprehensive e-book on the market for this subject!

Onward and upward!

Dr Marc Dussault

P.S. Yes I know, these study tips are simple – this is just one of many that can improve your grades with the least amount of effort! So what are you waiting for?

I am including another testimonial from Andrés who lives in beautiful Costa Rica because I think he adds a very personal perspective to the process of Getting Better Grades With The Least Amount Of Effort that will inspire and motivate you.

My grades have gone up and are still going up with very little extra effort. The thing is that I caught it right on the edge and believed I was doing the right thing from the beginning. I have no doubt that doing what I did at the very end of the semester could help me if I apply it at the beginning of the semester. It’s exactly what you say in your book just that you have to practice like you had the test that same week.. for a couple of weeks and don’t stress by trying to do it all at once.

Once you have a system you can use it in the exam and since you have practiced many times  you can check with your teacher to remove any mistakes before the exam. That’s where I lost  points in my exam, that I could have prevented.

From extremely low marks on my university test grades I have gotten back on track with some incredible success. Why is it that once you actually think that you are doing something productive and it is extremely beneficial it ends up being not so great after all?

It’s hard to get out of old habits and I will still be giving it all my effort. This has been a life-changing experience that takes me to a new breath of life above my own frustration. There are unlimited possibilities but limited time to find them. I believe it is not until you’re put to test that a door opens for you. The answer is that you live within your world of thoughts and experiences. Nobody perceives it like you do or thinks what you think.

Sincerely,
Andrés Acosta Egea
Costa Rica

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

If you have your own testimonial or QUESTIONS you would like to ask me, please post it as a comment to this blog and I’ll get to it as soon as I can.

All too often in life, it seems that the times in which we felt most productive were times when we actually had the least amount of time to spend.

What do I mean?

Think about that looming deadline set by your boss or that all-too-rapidly approaching final exam.

Do you find yourself not doing the work you’re supposed to do, when you have plenty of time to complete it yet when you’re giving yourself a time table and short sharp bursts of urgent timelines you excel above and beyond what you ever expected?

In simple terms, when you HAVE TO DO SOMETHING, YOU DO IT, when it’s not a must, you let it slide…

Are some examples of prioritizing:

Not important and not urgent. At the end of the semester you need to hand in a book report. It will probably take at least 10 to 20 hours to read the whole book (unless you speed read), and at least 4 or 5 hours to write the whole report. You have been given 3 months to complete it and it is worth at least 10% of your final grade.

You need to begin with it at the earliest momeny in order to avoid it becoming urgent.

You really want to avoid letting an important task become an “urgent and important” task. You can easily avoid this type of situation by psychologically giving yourself one-fourth of the time to complete the task, which will result in a faster completion time. Therefore, allowing extra time so that you can review and “polish” the final product into something truly amazing.

Not important but urgent. A quiz is scheduled for tomorrow, but you haven’t been to able to review anything. Although it’s only 5% of your total grade, you want to get the maximum mark you can.

You know perfectly well you could have done this sooner, and more easily, in between other tasks. Now, however, you need to worry about it unnecessarily.

Stop it!

Important but not urgent. You have a project that is worth 35% of your final mark.  It’s due in a month and you estimate it will take you 20-25 hours to complete.

On top of chunking it down into bite-size chunks you also need to give each bite-size chunk a deadline and timeline, so that you have a realistic expectation and understanding of your workload. This will take the pressure off you, so you can relax when you set time to relax and be very focused in the times you allot for each chunk to be done.

Important and urgent. Your final exam is in 2 days time and 70% of your final grade depends on it. You have not done enough till now. The amount of new material to be covered is so great that you are not sure where to begin. You start panicking.

This is not where you want to be spending your time.  You want to spend as much time as possible on important but not urgent issues.  Of course, this takes planning and preparation But you will find times when you need to manage important and urgent situations in your education, life and work.

The ideal coping method is to take a more objective look at the issue, and take the time to think it over calmly. There is no situation that can be best dealt with in haste; every difficulty needs some thought put into it, and every difficulty can be better overcome if you plan a little before diving into the situation.

Once you’ve worked out how to keep this balance, and how to take advantage of deadlines on the really urgent assignments, you’ll have developed a system that will help you successfully complete any task you’re assigned at school or work.

I cover these in much more detail with more detailed examples in my book. Get it now and reduce your exam stress today/tonight.

Onward and upward!
Dr Marc Dussault

P.S.

Successful students are NOT smarter than their classmates – they just DO things differently. Prioritization simply means putting in the SAME or LESS effort at a different point in time. Most students CRAM for exams with a LOT OF STRESS when in fact they could have done much better by studying the night before the night before the exam without duress.

That’s what I did when I was in the MBA program. I forced myself to study the night BEFORE the night BEFORE class on PURPOSE. So that I had the NIGHT BEFORE to review anything ‘else’ that I might have forgotten or had trouble with.

I was much less stressed than my classmates, slept better and YES got better grades. More importantly I enjoyed the process. Many of my classmates did not have fun learning – they were stressed, anxious, nervous and not much fun to be around. That was the case for the academic colleagues as well as family.

In some cases, it was almost the trigger to a divorce. In several, it meant they were not patient with their kids which is a terrible thing to see – WHEN IT’S TOTALLY PREVENTABLE…