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By following these twelve tips, you will be guaranteed to get straight AAAAA's. Read each tip carefully.

1. Find a quiet area in your house in which you arecomfortable and can isolate yourself from distractions. Besure that this space includes a chair, table or desk, andsufficient lighting. Ask others not to disturb you while youare in this special location and turn off all phones, beepers,televisions, videos, music, or anything else that your mindwill wander to instead of focusing on the schoolwork.

2. Find the best time to study. Some students tend to dotheir best work as soon as they get home from schoolwhile they are still in the school mode. Others need abreak and don't settle down to study until after practice,playtime, a nap, dinner and/or family time. Just be sure toallow yourself enough time to get everything done and stillget enough sleep each night.

3. Organize your day, week, month, etc. Set aside a specifictime each day to do your homework and study. Decide ona reasonable minimum amount of time that you will spendin this quiet place each day. For instance, lets say youdecide on 45 minutes as a reasonable amount of time todedicate to schoolwork each day. This means that even ifhomework is completed in the first 35 minutes that you willstill stay in this area and study or review notes for thenext 10 minutes until the 45 is up.

4. Reward yourself for sticking to your schedule and beingproductive. Decide on an activity to do once your studytime is completed. Plan on watching a television show laterin the evening. Tell yourself that you will play five minutesof a video game for every fifteen minutes that you study.Create goals and their rewards before you start studyingand work hard to reach them each and every day.

5. Variety is important. Vary the topics that you are spendingtime studying. Get the mandatory homework out of theway first and then go back and spend the additional timereviewing material from different courses each day. If youspent extra time reviewing history yesterday, spend theadditional time on science tonight. Some subject areasmay require more time than others. You should get a feelfor this a month or so into the school year.

6. Study the difficult subjects first and get them out of theway. You will be able to absorb material quicker and makemore connections when you are mentally fresh.

7. Take regular study breaks. This can also serve as a mini-reward. For instance, tell yourself that you are going to geta drink or snack or listen to a specific song after you finishre-copying your notes for science. Make the breaks short,3-6 minutes or so, so you won't get side-tracked or losefocus for the day.

8. Don't just re-read notes or the text. Ask questions. Createflash-cards. Redo assignments. Create time-lines. Playgames. Re-write your notes. Get someone to quiz you.Find websites online that review the same material. Makeup questions that you think will be on the test. Create newoutlines of the material by writing some specific topics andfilling in the details from memory. Studying should be anactive process, not just time spent re-reading something.

9. When you need to remember a group of terms use the firstletter of each to create a word (acronym) or a sentence(acrostic). For instance, an easy way to remember the fiveGreat Lakes is the word *HOMES*. By just rememberingthe word *homes* you can easily remember the names ofthe five Great Lakes . H stands for Huron, O for Ontario , Mfor Michigan , and so on. You can also create sillysentences to help you remember long lists of terms. Forinstance, remembering the sentence *Martha Visits EveryMonday, Just Stays Until Noon, Period*, will help youremember the planets in the order they are found. M forMercury, V for visits, E for Earth, etc.

10. Become a teacher. Find someone who is willing to listen toyou *, a classmate (this would be a great review for them),Mom or Dad, a sibling, the family dog * and explain yournotes to them. Have them (except the dog) ask questionsabout the material that they themselves don't understand.It's amazing how much you can retain when you have toactually teach material to someone.

11. Repetition, repetition, repetition. The material shouldbecome second nature to you by the time test day arrives.If it is not, then you need to devote more time to preparingfor the test.

12. Exercise often and before you sit down to study. Researchshows that students retain more after being physicallyactive. Go to soccer practice, take a jog, rough-housewith your dog, break a sweat first, then settle down andfocus on your school work.

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