How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less

by Cal Newport

Book Overview

Looking to jumpstart your GPA?

Most college students believe that straight A's can be achieved only through cramming and painful all-nighters at the library. But Cal Newport knows that real straight-A students don't study harder--they study smarter. A breakthrough approach to acing academic assignments, from quizzes and exams to essays and papers, How to Become a Straight-A Student reveals for the first time the proven study...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767922719
• ISBN13: 9780767922715
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

This Book Is No Scam!!!

This book helped me a lot! Now I am a straight A student. I would recommend buying the book. The only thing you need to do is apply yourself and read the book. It is that easy! I just love how Cal teaches you about how you can side step procrastination. Although it doesn't really give you a method on studying it is still very good and motivating. It saved me! It can also save you! This book deserves a 5 stars.

Some Suggestions for Students

The large number five-star ratings this book has been given well-deserved. It describes in an orderly, organized way what top students have learned about making good grades without becoming a joyless grind. Over many years as a writer, I've stumbled into most of the techniques he discussed, but I wish oh-so-much that someone had given me this book as I started college. High schools should use it as a textbook in classes for college-bound seniors. That said, I have two suggestions. First, this book was written to be useful for a long time. Other than a passing mention of Google, there's little here that wouldn't have been applicable ten years ago or ten years from now. That's good writing. Who wants to revise a book every few years? But in the here-and-now, some time-specific advice is helpful. Here are three that came to me as I read. 1. If you have an iPhone, an iPod touch, or a similar device with you all the time, use it to capture thoughts. Get one of the note applications, create a document for each assignment, and copy down ideas as they come to you. Keep it beside your bed, so you can take down ideas that come in the middle of the night. Don't trust your memory. 2. Near the end, he suggests going a lonely place and reading your paper aloud as a way to catch grammatical errors and poorly worded sentences. There's an easier approach that will probably let you catch more errors and is less tiring. Use the text-to-speech function of your computer to have it read your paper to you. Hearing will cause you to catch mistakes you won't see when reading 3. Remember that Microsoft Word isn't the best writing tool out there. There are applications specifically designed to make the drafting, outlining and writing process much easier. On my Mac, I use Scrivener and love it. There are similar applications for Windows. Second, is my frustration with what the book does not say. College should be more than a game to get the credentials to make lots of money. We should be doing more than jumping through hoops and pleasing professors by repeating back their opinions. In the beginning, Cal Newport suggests that the goal of his book should be making good grades easily enough that you have time to party and--yes he said it--get drunk. That's unfortunate. There's more to life than partying and all your hard work in college with come to nothing if you end up a drunk. Look for ways to make the time you save more constructive. Study topics that interest you even though they're not part of the course work. And last but not least, get involved in activities other than partying. In short, remember, there's more to college than making straight A's. --Michael W. Perry, Untangling Tolkien: A Chronology and Commentary for The Lord of the Rings

The ONLY real college success book that lives up to its title!

For perhaps the first time in my life, I finally found a book that truly lives up to its title. Personally, I dont review many books, but I just had to let everyone know that this book is AMAZING! Well...maybe i'm getting ahead of myself. You should also check out his other book too! I've read a few other books on college. However, they were bloated with too many pages, a boring writing style that failed to capture my attention, and were generally repeating common sense that students have heard way too many times. However, what sets this book apart is that, unlike 99% of college success books, the advice isn't biased. It doesn't involve one person's experience, but instead from fellow straight-a students. In fact, it isn't even written by a professor! The great part about this is that, although not every last tip will apply to everyone, it gives you a good pool to work with when formulating methods to get ahead in college. Personally, I found 95% of the stuff applicable to me. That being said, I found this book to be helpful because it follows the simple phrase: "Study smarter, not harder". Even with this simple phrase in mind, everything branches out to include often surprising "secrets" that WILL improve your college experience. Although much of it is common sense, Cal describes it in such a manner so that you can easily understand it, why it is important, and become inspired right away! Cal also writes very well that I found it very hard just to put the book down! He writes in such a manner like he is an older sibling who is passing on his knowledge to his younger brother or sister. Its really funny and definitely a far cry from those monotonous "college success" guides. Even then, this book more than delivers on its title. Although good grades in college are no doubt important, college is a once-in-a-lifetime experience that is full of new experiences waiting to be discovered. With this in mind, Cal proves to the reader that good grades are not the entire point of college. He defeats this common mindset by telling the reader to keep a good balance that were used by the straight-A students he interviewed. He used the phrase "star students" to describe them. These were people who actually HAD a life outside of the classroom: They had stellar grades, good friends, and were immersed in extracurricular activities. In essence, these students wanted to "stand out" right from the beginning. This piece of advice will definitely be hard to come by with other books. A's B's and C's are NOT the "currency" of academia. An important thing to remember is that this book is more in depth than his previous book. Even so, i'd buy BOTH books! If you are skeptical like I was at first, do two things: 1. Read the introduction. 2. Check out Cal's blog on college success. Its updated frequently: http://calnewport.com/blog/ Good luck and have fun! ***UPDATE*** December 22, 2008 3.7 GPA for my 1st semester of college. I had tons of free time on my hands! Thi

Saved my college career and social life

I'm currently a student at Tufts University, and before reading this book I was a real "grinder" when it came to trying to get a good GPA. I really didn't have a stellar social life because, due to my previous study methods, I needed to study for hours on end in order to excel academically. I did well, but not insanely well, and it always felt like I was under a time crunch to finish my work. But the most frustrating aspect of my early college career was the sacrifices I had to make to my social life to get an above-average GPA. Every time I tried to make time to go out and have fun, my grades suffered. Enter Cal's book. After reading this book and applying his techniques, I was able to take the hardest course load I ever took (5 science/engineering courses), play rugby, and go out, on average, 3 times a week while pulling off a 3.8 GPA for the semester. The techniques in this book will vastly improve your quality of life in college. His time management techniques are worth the price of admission alone. I HIGHLY recommend it, Two thumbs up.

Newport Delivers the straight stuff

I've read many many books on this subject, and this is the best one I've found so far. Cal Newport does a fantastic job presenting his finds on how to get straight A's, without the BS that you'll get from 90% of the books out there. The main source of information for this book was interviews with real, straight A students at schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, etc... Newport sent out surveys around the country to these students, and even interviewed many in depth in order to devise the strategies that these students are using. The book is broken up into three sections: Study Basics + Time Management, Quizzes + Exams, and Essays + Papers. In each section, Newport carefully outlines the strategies real students use to gain an academic edge. Some of these include how to plan out your day in only five minutes, how to win the war on porcrastination, and how to come up with killer ideas for essay topics. At the end of each section, the author presents a "Case Study" on one or two student, where he goes through a typical day/week with a college student who implements these strategies. At the end, I found myself feeling empowered and motivated, like there was no academic challenge I couldn't overtake. And here's the real good stuff: the author shows you how to do this WITHOUT having to study for 16 hours a day, only get 3 hours of sleep, and spend every spare waking moment with your nose in your notes. In fact, Newport deliberately discarded any interviews with students who followed strategies such as this. I'd reccommend this book to any student at any level who wants to learn how to live up to their full potential. It's easier than you think.

Become a Straight-A Student and Enjoy Life!!

As a reader of Cal's previous book, I immediately grabbed this book and have not been disappointed. Cal follows his practical, no-BS style and brings you the most effective and usable strategies for becoming a straight-A student. In the end, what separates this book is that it dispels the myth that you either have to be a nerd or extremely smart to get straight-A's. Pulling from the experiences of people who've been there and done that, Cal provides a strategy that ANYONE can use.