7 Tricks To Hate Math Class A Little Less

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I know what it's like to absolutely dread math class. For a while, every math class I took just seemed to make me hate it more and more. Honestly, to this day, I find it to be one of my more unpleasant courses to take but despite that, I've learned some tricks to make it a little bit less hate-worthy.

One of the most important factors in learning anything is your own motivation to learn it. If you're not deeply curious about a subject then you'll always be learning at a slower pace than if you love the subject. That's why you need to learn to put a more positive spin on the courses you hate. Here are some ideas that can help you make that happen in math.

1. Love It For What It Is

There are many classes where all of your right or wrong answers are highly subjective. Math is the exception to that rule. There is no course that is more objective than mathematics because you're always going to be right or wrong. Sure, some teachers may give partial credit for being on track but essentially, you're wrong if you don't have the right answer.

This can be painful for someone that loves the subjective as much as me but over time you can learn to enjoy it.

Your success or failure has virtually nothing to do with how much the teacher likes you, how much you study, or how much effort you put in. Your success or failure depends mostly on your ability to follow a specific methodology. Keep that in mind as you're in math class. If you can understand the methodology well enough, you need virtually no studying to succeed.

2. Don't Read It

Many students that struggle in math class are trying to learn math in one of the least effective ways possible. If you need to go home and read the textbook to understand how to do the problems then you're probably doing it wrong.

Unless you're naturally strong in math, learning math from a textbook is insanely difficult. Textbooks are written to be perfectly accurate, not perfectly understandable. On top of that, very few students have the discipline to go through the problems listed step-by-step precisely enough to get the advantages of just listening and watching it in class.

Pay attention in class.

I know. I wish there was a way around it too but this is one of the few classes that non-mathematically gifted students need to follow along in. Following along with the teacher gives most students the best chance of understanding the material fast and without the suffering through the textbook.

Tutoring is also an option. In my opinion there is no better class to get tutored in. The expertise throughout the problem solving process in essential.

3. Catch Up

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One of the biggest problems students have in math is falling behind. Most of mathematics is built up upon everything you should have learned before. That means, if you miss something early on, you're always going to be struggling to understand the stuff you're trying to learn now.

What's the lesson to learn from this?

Don't fall behind!

I know. That's easier said than done but remember that the next time you start zoning out in class.

If you already get the feeling you're behind then be honest about it and catch up. The hardest part about most struggling student's situation is that very few students know what they don't understand. They just occasionally can't figure certain things out. Catching up in math is a whole lot harder than keeping up so expect to invest a lot of time trying to catch what you don't understand but it changes the way you look at the course in the future. Eventually, it becomes much easier to follow.

Getting a tutor is one solution. Spending an hour with a good tutor will provide way more value than spending the hour in class. Another option is specifically testing yourself with textbooks and finding out what you suck at. If you suck at it then you probably should invest some time into figuring out why.

The funniest part is this; once you figure out what you suck at, you've virtually solved the problem you're having.

4. Relate It To What You Love

The idea of keeping track of the interaction between two different numbers probably doesn't float your boat (that is, if you're not already a fan of math.) You shouldn't spend your time thinking about mathematics in the same way a mathematician would. Mathematicians find numbers fascinating. It could take years to develop even close to the same love for mathematics as someone naturally gifted in math.

That being said, find why YOU can love mathematics. Everyone has there own interests. Which one of yours has anything to do with math?

I personally love the idea of working with businesses and money. To make mathematics more enjoyable, I just act like I'm trying to solve some kind of a business problem.

Maybe you like sports. Instead of working with numbers, imagine you're working with statistics or salary caps or the angle of the swing of a baseball bat. Heck, imagine there are color commentators in the background while you're doing homework.

5. Learn The Story

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Math class is all about the methodology. If that really doesn't interest you, it may be just because you don't understand the context of the methods. Try spending a little time looking into the history of mathematics. While later math doesn't have too much context, much of the early math was used to solve real life problems that people were having.

You may not immediately be curious about the Pythagorean theorem but aren't you a little curious why anyone spent their time figuring it out and what it actually meant for society. These people weren't (all) just crazy masochists.

6. Future Prospects

There are very few careers that are as certain and positive as the ones you can get into with a mathematics background.

Engineering is the first one on my mind. If you hate math then this may not be your ideal choice but learning to apply math effectively will give you this option. The unspoken secret behind this is that as an engineer, you don't really need to use math all that much. You just need to understand how it works. Most of the job is just communication.

Engineering isn't the only career that math can help with though. Virtually every secure career around today is strongly based on your ability to follow a very specific methodology. The skills you're learning will definitely apply to your future (even if it's not the specific equations that matter.)

While it may not be fun, mathematics can set you up very well for your future.

7. Change It Up

The most important part of this article isn't any particular idea listed. It's something that you need to focus on. You will probably never start to enjoy math if you don't make an effort to find a reason why. That's not a bad thing. Not everyone needs to understand math deeply. That being said, you need to suffer the consequences and challenges that come from whatever decision you make.

If you want to start hating math a little bit less, you need to be willing to change the way you think about it dramatically. If one of these ideas doesn't work for you then you need to try another. If none of these ideas work for you then you need to keep trying to find a way. The solution definitely isn't going to come from you doing the exact same thing as you did last year or the year before that. You need to be willing to change.

I don't expect anyone to reach there arms in the air screaming “Hallelujah!' as they suddenly learn to love mathematics but I hope this makes those of you struggling to enjoy math a little more comfortable with it. You don't have to love a subject to learn to be good at it but the more you're able to get interested in it, the better off you'll be.

Do you want to know how you can regularly score in the 90's without putting in hours of work a night? (In fact, you only have to put in 15 minutes.) Be sure to check out the previous articles of this blog and maybe even one of the ebooks from the sidebar.

Why You Should Treat Your Teacher Like A Noble King (Even If They Are An Evil Tyrant)

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I was having a conversation with a reader the other day. He said something that caught my attention. As much as I'm a fan of stroking my own ego, I'm actually going to be posting this to get to an important point. (I'm paraphrasing it to hide some details.)

It's funny how your blog is the only one that seems to hold teachers at all accountable. It's great to finally see someone allowing the possibility that a teacher is crap. I had this one teacher that would always get mad for me talking back to him. It screwed with grades in all my classes because I'd get so angry and stressed.

This comment left me feeling pretty good at first. One of the things I try to do with this blog is break down that force field that teachers have that protect them from any honest criticism. That forcefield tends to protect bad teachers from ever leaving teaching, or becoming a better teacher. Worse, in my humble opinion, it prevents good teachers from ever getting the feedback needed to become great teachers.

As I thought about this reader's comment I noticed something that I should have noticed earlier.

I am very harsh on teachers in this blog but there is a very important point students need to try and remember.

At The Mercy

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It doesn't matter how good or bad your teacher is, you're at the mercy of that teacher's opinion of you. While the following is not always completely true, I want you to read it as if it is. That's because 95% of the time it is true. (Despite that 95% of the time being true, you'll repeatedly be shown the opposite of this on television shows about school.)

If your teacher doesn't like you, your grades will suffer. No, don't believe the television shows that show a genius getting great grades but having the teacher's hate him or her. With some students, I've seen full grade differences based on how well their teachers liked them. A teacher that doesn't like you will force you to do even better to get the same grade as a well liked student.

This is something that most teachers will try and deny but remember the following. They are human beings. They are not transient beings from a better species than our own. Just like you couldn't grade your teachers fairly, they can't grade you fairly.

On top of that, if your teacher gives you an unfair grade, administration will always side with the teacher. It doesn't matter how little the administration respects a teacher, they will always respect a teacher more than a student. The teacher will get the benefit of the doubt. Remember, that administration deals with crappy and irritating students all day (thats most of their job.) They deal with crappy and irritating teachers every once in a while. They're biased too.

Play The Fool

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As much as I would like all teachers to get honest feedback from their students, I don't think you should put your personal life on the line to do it. You're not responsible for teaching your teacher a lesson. If you're in class, you need to keep your eye on the prize. I'm going to assume the prize is your grade for the sake of this article. (If it's actually that blonde a few desks away from you then just pretend we're talking about them.)

To be well liked by your teacher isn't simple. You can't just suck up to your teacher and hope for the best. (No one likes a suck up.) One way you can be well-liked is to share a hobby or interest. If your teacher likes a sport and you like it too, milk that. Ask them their opinion on stuff and act like you care about it. Usually if you're actually interested in it, you will care about it anyway. That is ideal.

Another way to be well-liked is to play into the noble teacher fantasy. Don't talk in class. Keep your eyes on the teacher when they're lecturing even if you're thinking about something else. Try to not stare off into space. Be mildly friendly. Maybe even go to the teacher and ask for help when you aren't understanding something. Yes, this makes most students want to throw up in their own mouth but it's one of the most powerful ways you can be well-liked by a teacher. Teacher's do notice this. They think you care and that helps your grades immensely. (Heck, pretending you care sometimes helps you care more anyway.)

Bad Situations

Consider yourself lucky if you get through school without a few really bad teacher's that you have to suffer through. In most cases, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. In the best case scenario, switch out of their classes fast. In the worst case scenario, you may never be liked by the teacher but at the very least you can try to not make them your enemy.

Based on my experience working with students, and working with myself, a single bad teacher can drag down more than just the grade for a single class. The stress caused a that bad teacher can easily carry on throughout the whole school year. Do your best not to let that happen.

Try a few things to solve it. If those things you try to solve it with don't work then stop worrying about it and accept you're at the mercy of that teacher. Don't fight it. Fighting it is where most of the stress comes from. You may suffer in that class but that's just the straw you drew. You can't win them all.

Don't get in the habit of treating any teacher like an evil tyrant (even if they are one.) That's the kind of thing that can accidentally turn into some really bad habits.

Now I need to get back to the original conversation I was having with the reader of this blog.

No matter how bad your teacher is, do not talk back to them. Every time you seem to attack your teacher you're forcing yourself to be that much better to get the same grade. Play the teacher's game and accept it. It's no fun but it's the only good option you're given.

No, I don't like that anymore than you do. What's more important to you, your ego or your grade?

Do you want to know how to study less and score more? Be sure to follow this blog and check out some of our archived articles.

4 Secrets To Study Organization That Never Get Talked About

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He was like a nerdy James Bond to me. I noticed him in class. He flipped out his binder like it was nothing. The binder was tabbed into sections related to the course work. All the sheets he got were neatly organized into his binder. Even his handwriting looked perfectly organized.

I looked down at my textbook with sheets randomly crushed into different sections of it. I suddenly felt the shame of my ugly organizational system. (If you'd dare call my system organizational.) I knew that I had to get to the bottom of it. That opportunity came a few classes later.

The class was organizing into groups for an activity and I was like a rocket guided missile ready to kiss whatever butts were necessary to get in his groups so I could ever so casually ask him a question. (Yes. That's a terribly mixed metaphor but I'm sticking with it.)

After asking him a few questions about how he kept so organized I learned about the work he put in. He told me he spent 5 or 10 minutes every night after class organizing his binder. I also learned this was his only class. I was suddenly I little less impressed. Then when he flipped through to the test section of his binder I casually noticed (okay, I stared inappropriately) his test scores. Then it hit me.

1. The Over-organization Virus

This nerdy James Bond of mine scored a grade lower than I had on the class's last test. Despite his awesome organizational skills and investment, he got a B when I got an A. My organizational system consisted of carrying random papers inbetween the pages of my textbooks. I couldn't put my finger on this at the time but it caused me to look closer at organized students.

There is this cliché that surrounds organized students. The more organized a student appears to be, the more we expect them to get better grades but that just doesn't hold true. There are plenty of organized students that get poor grades. There are plenty of disorganized students that get great grades. Of course, part of this comes down to intelligence but I believe it goes much farther.

Organization does not improve your grades (unless there is some kind of a binder check score.) Organization can help you improve your grades but those are two very different things. Having your binder perfectly laid out will not prepare you for your next test. It will only help you prepare for your next test. You need to still prepare for that test.

That raises a fundamental question. Would the time spent organizing be better spent studying?

In some cases it would, and before trying to implement any new organizational system you need to remember that. Time you spent tabbing stuff is time you don't spend learning stuff.

The sad truth is that most students use organization as a means to avoid productive activity. Organizing your binder can be kind of fun. Studying, on the other hand, (if you're doing it right) won't always be a fun experience. Organizing your stuff can be useful but it can just as easily be an excuse for you not to do the work you should be doing.

2. Organize Individually

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It is absolutely essential that you plan out your required level of organization for individual classes. Every class requires a certain amount of organization. If you organize every one of your classes as well as the nerdy James Bond I was discussing earlier then you'll spend way too much time organizing things you could have just as easily thrown away.

If you organize everyone of your classes with my classic, sheets randomly slipped between textbook pages, method then you'll be screwing yourself out of a good grade in many classes. With every class you need to figure out how much organization you're going to require. Doing that isn't always easy but just working on this problem will help everyone of your classes grades.

Some classes require organization because the teacher grades binders or other organization methods. I find this unbelievably irritating and as a matter of principle, if the binder is worth less than 10% of the grade, I'm not making a big effort. That being said, many people find this to be an easy way to get points. Academically speaking, it's often worth organizing a binder if it gets you points for it. (Unless the requirements for that binder are ridiculous or the points you get are really low.)

Another factor that you need to consider when deciding how to organize for a class is how difficult the course is. The simple method of dealing with this is organizing more for harder classes and less for your easy classes.

The more complicated way of dealing with this is a little more my style. There are many very difficult courses that don't require much organizing. The more the teacher lectures out of the textbook, the less you need to worry about organization. If a teacher virtually follows the textbook then almost no organization can usually get you by comfortably. If the teachers flies off on tangents all day, you may need to organize everything more carefully to keep up.

3. Put It On Paper

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There are a ton of different organizational methods but there is one trick that all of them use. It's one of the fundamental reasons organizational systems work at all.

Write stuff down.

Most organization is that simple.

While the biology of all this is way more complicated than I'm going to give it credit for. Think about your brain this way:

You only have so much space to hold information actively. By actively, I mean, in a useful way. I may know the capitol of Yugoslavia but until I hear someone say it, I might just feel like it's trapped on the tip of my tongue. That's not active information in my brain. It's just there. Ever forget to do something that you were supposed to do? It just wasn't in your active memory.

When you write stuff down, you take it out of your active storage memory and put it somewhere that you don't have to struggle to find it. That saves brain space for other stuff.

When I say to write stuff down, I'm talking about just about anything you need to remember in whatever way you want. Some people like to write stuff down in complex organizers. Others prefer random notes to themselves. Even if there is no chance you'll forget something write it down. That allows your active memory to clear it out and be used to store other important information. (And there will always be more important information to remember.)

4. Cool-ness Matters

Yes, despite noticing how ineffectively the nerdy James Bond's system worked, I still learned something from it. I started to emulate some of the things I noticed he did. As I learned to emulate those things (in only the necessary courses), my grades got a tiny boost. While I liked that boost, there was something that was significantly more important to me.

I felt way cooler (yes, I know. I'm a nerd.) when I didn't feel like a disorganized mess for my classes. If I just got that tiny boost in grades then I probably wouldn't have followed through completely. A couple points isn't particularly motivating but, honestly, I would probably have been willing to lose a couple points to feel cool.

Sure, you may be some superhero of not-care-what-they-think-itism but it helps.

If you like some organizational method for whatever stupid immature reason it is, this is probably the organizational system you should be using. Some people do this by keeping everything on there iPhone. Maybe you want a trapper keeper (Hipsters are bringing everything back. Please not these...) However you want to organize is probably the right way to do it.

Organization can be a beautiful thing but beauty is often subjective and useless in improving your grades. (Yes. I'm avoiding an obvious prostitution joke here.) Focus on using organization right. Don't focus on organization. With the right balance, it can be the key to taking a good student up to great student status but it needs to be done with the end in mind.

Do you want to learn how to study in 15 minutes a night while getting the grades of someone who studies for hours? Check out my books and other articles for more information.

How To Balance Sports And School

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You don't! Done. Have a nice day...

Okay... That probably doesn't satisfy you very much. I get it. You want to know how you can manage playing the sport you love while not sucking your way through class. It is possible. Any student can have amazing grades while competing in sports. (Or any student can be amazing at sports and still have good grades.) The problem is not with students not having enough time (usually.) I'll tell you how you can do it but there is an important point I have to hint at first. The problem is the attempt to balance them at all. Trying to balance sports and school leads most students down the wrong path.

Give Up The Balance

This is going to sound completely unrelated but I think it will help make my point.

In the last few decades mothers (and fathers to some extent) have been bombarded with bull about being perfect at everything. A hundred years ago, most woman aimed to be a good wife and mother. Today, it's wildly different. Most women are expected to be great mothers, amazing wives, absolutely gorgeous, fantastic employees, and make it look easy the whole time. Naturally though, that's completely impossible.

Mothers often work to try and balance all these aspects of their life to meet that cliche. The sad fact that they're humans and only have so much time in the day means they usually fail. Instead of being great at everything they end up being okay and barely passable at everything. Instead of kicking ass they spend their time trying to keep their head barely above acceptable.

Do you get how this relates to you yet?

You can't be an amazing student in every subject, a great athlete, a good friend, the slightest bit happy, and do everything else in the world too. Most students drag themselves into the ground trying to perfect everything. Instead of actually succeeding they just lead themselves into being completely depressed about their life. That, of course, just makes everything worse.

Stop trying to be perfect.

You will fail.

You can be damn good at everything but don't lose sight of reality. You only have so much time in a day. Once you accept that you can learn to use that time right.

Balancing is not your goal. Your goal needs to be prioritizing.

Priorities Beat Balance

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So, what are you looking to do with your schooling and sports experience?

You need to understand your goals with school and sports. If you're looking to become a professional athlete then unless you're naturally gifted, you'll never be good enough to compete while maintaining perfect grades. If you want to play sports professionally, you need to prioritize sports over school.

Of course, most students have the opposite problem. If you're not planning on making a career out of sports then make school a priority over sports. Lets face it. This is what most students should be doing. Unless you're in the tiny minority of amazing athletes, you shouldn't be planning a professional sports career. Don't fight against genetics. It's no fun. (Then again, it's your life.)

Well... If you're like most students you're thinking, “well... I'd like to keep my options open. I shouldn't set one priority over the other....” NOOOOOOOOOOO!! STOP! I'm serious. Give up that balance thought.

Priorities are way more effective than attempts balance. Balance is like making up a pretend equation to solve your problems. There is no effective way to measure whether you're putting enough time into anything. Your decisions will usually come down to your emotional state.

Priorities are tiebreakers. Lets say you're doing good in school and in sports but tomorrow you have a big game and a big test. You have one night to prepare for them both. The average student will prepare for each one of them about half the time. There are major problems with that strategy.

First of all, it takes time to “get in the zone” with your studying or practice. You need to grab your sports equipment. Go to the field. Practice. Go home. Take a shower. You need to pull out your textbook. You need to try and focus. You need to study. Then you go to bed. Notice how only two of those things listed are productive (studying and practicing.) Prep is unproductive. Picking both tasks in the same night makes you double the prep and reduce the productive time.

Second, most of your improvements won't come from study and practice time. It will come from the time you spend thinking about it afterwards. If after practicing, you study, your brain won't get to think about practice. Most of this is not conscious. (Ever lay in bed at night mindlessly thinking about the sport you were playing. That's productive, even if you're not trying to make it productive.)

If you give up balance and use priorities it all simplifies. The priority will win every time. That will allow you to excel at the priority.

But I'll Fail At The Non-Priority!

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Setting a priority doesn't mean you have to completely give up your non-priority. If you choose to try and become a professional athlete, you don't have to put grades too far below your sport. If you spend 10 hours a week practicing your sport, you can spend 9 hours a week studying (theoretically that is. In reality, that much studying is usually idiotic. Be sure to read my blog for a while if you doubt that.)

Priorities aren't about ignoring your non-priorities. They're about simplifying your decisions when your decisions become difficult. Most decisions don't have to be difficult.

Even if you put full effort into becoming an athlete, you'd still have plenty of time that you couldn't spend working at that goal. During those times, you can study. You'll injure yourself if you play your sport too often. You'll just hinder you studying if you study too long. (Studies show students learn less effectively as they study more.)

Notice how both activities have their own limiting factors. You don't need to balance them. You just need to let them balance themselves after setting your priorities.

There may be times you need to change your priority. That's alright. Change it regularly if you emotionally need to (or if you need to make the grade for sports qualifications.) Just remember to let one relax every time you feel the need to tighten up with the other. Without this mentality you'll constantly be trying to drive yourself into the ground with balance.

Don't try to balance school and sports. You'll usually get much farther in both areas of your life if you make one of them a priority over the other. You only have so much time in the day. You need to make sure you're using it on what's important to you as much as practically possible.

Do you want to know how you can cut your studying down to 15 minutes or less a day? Then be sure to follow this blog, our twitter, and check out the archives of this blog.

7 ACTUAL Reasons You Should Be Getting Good Grades (And 1 Reason You Shouldn't!)

Okay. I get it. So you haven't necessarily put in 100% effort into your grades so far. I've spent plenty of years slacking through school myself but eventually the slow kick in the butt the world gave knocked some sense into me. For years, I struggled to care even the slightest bit about my grades.

I did have one reason that I kept trying to use to force myself to study with but it never worked. Since I've started working with students on how to improve their grades, I've learned that it's actually one of the most common mistakes students make.

Do not get good grades to make someone else happy.

Despite all the whining of your parents or teachers, you cannot give in. Any attempt to study to make someone else happy is an almost completely wasted effort. You have only one life to live. Right now it might not seem like a big deal but you will regret the time you waste studying for this reason. Studying to make other people happy is a completely inefficient and painful way to spend your time. If you're going to find a reason to get good grades then take the time to find a good one. That will speed up your studying and make sure you can actually enjoy the process.

What are the reasons you should be getting good grades.

1. The Pursuit Of Knowledge

Yes. This is the noble and blatantly obvious first answer. Of course, 99% of you will glance over this like a crack in a sidewalk but this crack happens to be wide enough to break your ankle if you're not looking out.

Your grades can be thought of as a sign of the knowledge you're gaining. While it's never as simple as that cliché, it holds some truth. If you're looking to gain knowledge that they teach in school, focus on getting good grades as proof that you're actually learning it.

That being said, this should not apply for most students. Don't feel bad if you really don't care about the subjects taught in school.

2. Personal Training

I may have never enjoyed many subjects in school but after I started focusing on scoring high, this was one of my fundamental reasons.

You only have so much time in your day. If you want to be a better person, you need to use that time to improve. Considering you spend hours of your day cramped up into a dim classroom, you might as well use it as a way to improve yourself.

Your grades improving is usually a sign that you're improving your ability to learn information in school. These improvements will be helpful well past your school years.

3. To Get People Off Your Back (Yea. It's different.)

I know what you're thinking. Isn't this the same as making other people happy? Not exactly.

You should not be getting good grades to satisfy someone else but, for most students, getting poor grades would be absolutely miserable. Not because there is some major life consequence (well... probably) but mostly because parents and teachers would be poking you with annoying comments all day about your lack of effort.

If you're in a non-voluntary school situation like high school or earlier, satisfying people to the point that they shut up is a reasonable motivation to get good grades. If you're getting C's and your parents are complaining that you should be getting A's, try only getting B's and see if they stop whining. If they do, maybe it's worth sticking with the B effort. If they still keep complaining then either get the grades they want solely to shut them up (and don't put in an extra ounce of effort over that,) or forget trying to please them.

The difference between this and to make other people happy is this. Do the minimum to get people to let you live your own life. (Sometimes no amount will do this. If not, this reason is not for you. Deal with the people in your life. Not your grades.)

4. Prepare For A Career

So, you've decided you want to be a doctor (or maybe a professional basket weaver?) Getting good grades now, particularly in related subjects can be a great way to start prepping for a job. Notice the word start. It's definitely a small step for most careers but some career fields this is particularly useful.

If you want to be a math teacher (or engineer or card counter etc.) then focus on getting good grades in math. These lessons will definitely help you in your future career. Your history grade might be a complete waste of time though.

5. Create A Buffer

Okay. Maybe you're not so motivated by any of these other reasons. Despite that, you might still want to pass the class (how odd of you, right?)

Good grades can be created as a buffer for more slacking in the future. With some courses, the early lessons are significantly easier than the later lessons. For those courses (and certain other situations) you may want to get great grades early on so you can slack off a little later in the year without worrying about your grades failing.

Imagine how great it will feel having a final coming up that you could completely fail and still get a good grade in the course. Yea. Studying isn't all that hard in those cases.

6. Top School Or A Scholarship

Notice the word top school. I did not use the word good school. Good colleges do very little to help your career in the future versus the average college. They generally charge more to give you a slightly better education. That better education, usually doesn't pay off with a better career.

Imagine you're an employer reading an application that shows a person went to Joanasburg University? That may be the greatest college in the country educationally but if your potential employer hasn't heard of it, it means nothing. Top schools include MIT, Harvard, and other recognizably named colleges. On top of that, they can usually get you significantly better connections for your future.

If you're close to qualifying for one of those top colleges then you should consider keeping those grades up to make sure you have the chance to get in. At the very least, you may be able to get an academic scholarship. That can also be a great reason to keep fighting for great grades.

7. Cause You Wanna

Don't let me tell you not to score high if you have some personal reason you want to get good grades. Maybe you want to impress the girl sitting next to you in class? Maybe you're hot for teacher? Maybe you're a time traveler planning to learn information to take back to your society where you'll use it to defeat the evil ninja monkeys on mars? Whatever really floats your boat it a good motivation. As long as it really gets you excited, it can be a good reason to get a good grade.

Just please... don't do it to try and make other people happy. If they need your grades to be happy then they have bigger problems they should be worrying about.

Do you want to know how to get better grades than ever without putting more time than ever into studying? Be sure to follow this blog and our twitter to get all the updates.