School did not always come easy for me. Students usually are expected to memorize facts, figures, and material, but with my involvement in sports and school activities, I found this too difficult and time consuming. I had to come up with a method of balancing sports, fun and studying, or risk failing.
I realized in high school that an effective study program required four key ingredients:

The first ingredient is the ability to type. Most kids today have familiarity with a computer keyboard, but I’m not talking about the “hunt and peck” method of typing they develop on their own; I mean honest-to-goodness typing, using all eight fingers and both thumbs. I took a typing class in high school and practiced at home every night. Before long I could type seventy words per minute. That ability allowed me to prepare term papers faster and do outlines of my courses with speed and clarity, not to mention neatness. If you don’t know how to type, I recommend that you learn as soon as possible.

The second ingredient of a good study program is the ability to read. Every student should spend more time reading. If you think you’re already reading a lot, read more! Reading is a key to better grades. It is important for students to be exposed to a reading course that teaches speed. The idea of speed-reading is not to say each and every word to yourself as you read it, but rather to scan the sentences and paragraphs for key concepts and to identify themes. Think about it: when you read you are normally saying every word to yourself as you read it. This slows you down and makes it difficult to read fast. I took a speed-reading course when I was in high school. That course became invaluable to me later in college when I was taking seven classes at a time and each course required reading several books. I was a history major and a political science minor as an undergraduate, so you can probably imagine the number of books that I had to read for each class. Using the speed-reading techniques I learned, I was able to complete all of the course readings with ease. Check around for a speed-reading course in your area and enroll in it.

 

The third ingredient of a good study program is to use study techniques to help you remember important facts and concepts you will need to know for quizzes and tests. Part One of this book covers several recommended techniques.

 

The fourth and what I consider the final ingredient of a good study program is the ability to take down notes efficiently using some form of shorthand. Somewhere in your academic career you will take a course that is totally new. For me, it came when I was a college freshman and took my first philosophy course. I had no idea what philosophy was about. Besides presenting a lot of information unfamiliar to me, the professor talked so fast that I could not take notes fast enough. Without question, I felt I was doomed to fail the course. Think about it: if you don’t understand the subject matter that the professor is teaching, and you can’t take notes on what’s happening in class, you may quickly feel overwhelmed. Get better grades in less time! This book will teach you study tricks and techniques for better grades.