What is Reddit's opinion of What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades. Optimum Learning. Minimum Time.?

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I bought this in college back in ‘94 and it served me well.

https://www.amazon.com/What-Smart-Students-Know-Learning/dp/0517880857

Most of the study tools you have described are passive. Try being active with the material. Engage with the material. Try to incorporate these things

• Preview the material before lecture - Write down or just think about some questions you have about the topic to be covered. This gets you thinking about the material so you have an idea of what will happen in lecture. (5 to ten minutes tops)

• Review after lecture - This gives you a chance to reflect on what was covered in lecture. Were your questions in your preview answered? Try to pinpoint the key areas covered in lecture. (5 to ten minutes tops)

• Reflect on what you know - Think about it; why do we have a patella?

• Explain it to someone - Instead of having your girlfriend quiz you tell her what ligaments are found in the knee and what their function is.

• Textbooks - Give the summary paragraph a once over. It will tell you what you should have learned in the chapter. On the summary page look up the key terms. Go back through the chapter and focus on them, giving extra attention to the key areas covered in your course.

The learning pyramid is a good place to start. I strongly recommend What Smart Students Know Check out the 12 principles in the sample reading on page 20. You can jump to the chapters that you think you need improving on the most. It was recommended to me by my thermodynamics professor and has helped me a lot. Good luck.

My high school was actually really bad, we had like 6 alumni from my class arrested for murder in the last three years. I also got 90's by just showing up, I don't think I ever studied once for anything, and I always did homework in homeroom.

I actually had early dismissal senior year, so I got to leave at 10:30 am because that was a senior perk if you set your schedule right, I can't believe no one took advantage of it, they discontinued it after I graduated. My computer broke so I couldn't play WoW for 15 hours a day anymore, so I decided to go to the library and just chill on the computers there because my mom said I either have to get a job or go to the library.

At the time I didn't really know what I wanted to do in life, I really liked chemistry and biology, but my HS teacher was a real asshole and wouldn't let me take AP Chemistry. I looked through some of the books after I got bored of flash games and I found a book called "Gifted Hands" by Dr. Ben Carson. I read the back cover and was pretty intrigued so I thought I'd give it a read. I was pretty blown away and I finished it in a couple hours, I never read before so me reading a book was a pretty big deal. His story kind of motivated me too because I thought that I wasn't smart enough to become a doctor, which is something I thought about when I was younger (I know that's so unoriginal, but my mom used to let me play with scalpels like at age six to give stuffed animals surgery.)

After that I sort of spent all my time learning "how to learn." I found Cal Newport's Blog his stuff was good, but my favorite read would have to be "What Smart Students Know." Cal's books are pretty good, but get them from a library, they're not worth a buy to be honest. His blog is much better.

It takes a lot of effort and it sucks but the results do happen. I had a couple bad semesters because of a death in the family, but I have been pretty on top of things since. The book I linked is pretty hardcore, and it teaches you that basically you have to teach yourself everything from the textbook or multiple textbooks. I actually talked about it with two professors, and one surgeon that I know that were Caltech, MIT, and Harvard educated graduates and they confirmed that they did similar things, reading and deep understanding of the concepts in the text. I try to stay like a chapter or two ahead of class to be in the safe zone, and importantly I study everyday, typically from 7 or 8 am until 5 or 6 pm. I don't really go to class if it is recorded, I just watch the lectures at 1.5 speed to get the main idea and read the book to solidify. Also, I do as many practice problems as I can. Also, go to office hours to clarify things, I actually got extra credit in one class because I was the only student to show up to office hours when it wasn't exam week. Professors are actually really bored because no one shows up, so you can talk about their research if you're interested in it, they'll talk about that for hours.

Check out /r/getstudying also, it's pretty good. Hmm, that's all I can think of for now.

If you want to study smarter, this is the best one I know about: http://www.amazon.com/What-Smart-Students-Know-Learning/dp/0517880857

Tim Ferriss is one of the biggest bullshitters in the ~~supposed 'self-help'~~ bullshit genre. And with each book, he's honing his craft, becoming better and better at selling nothing but pure bullshit. Allow me to give a few examples:

• His first company, BrainQuicken, was founded on bullshit and pseudoscience.

• The 4-Hour workweek is total bullshit. Have you heard of any person increasing their income that much after reading it? Do you know anyone that works 4 hours a week? Hell, I don't even know anyone who works 20 hours a week (who isn't also looking for another job). Here's a nickel's worth of free advice: changing the definition of a word (i.e. work) does not make the end product go away. You can enjoy your job immensely, but it's still work. Most people already have heard of the Pareto Principle, especially if they took a marketing class. His books are written for one market; the people whom are obsessed with Self-help, even though they never get any benefits from it.

• The 4-Hour Body is barely a book, and is more a collection of ridiculous (and potentially dangerous) fitness regimens that the author probably found searching Google. All of the information contained in this book came from someone else, as Ferris doesn't have a background in research, nutrition, or working out. So if you've already bought other diet/exercise books, you won't learn anything new from this book.

• 4-Hour Cookbook: Again, everything in this book is pure rhetoric and conjecture. Have you heard of any person increasing their ability to learn complex tasks as quickly as he espouses? Any Ph.D.'s getting their degrees in 2 years instead of 4? Any M.D.'s doing two residency's at the same time? No, and the answer is because this book is for stupid people that have never heard of studying or learning before. So sure, you can go from not being able to boil water to making spaghetti in a few hours of practice (no shit), but it'll still take you 20 years and a shitload of luck to become a gourmet chef.

• 4-Hour 'whatever': I'm leery of any blog (whether it's Manliness or Resiliency or Approachability) that uses Search Engine Optimization tactics in order to address topics. All these authors (and they are all guilty) are doing is taking whatever topic they want, and injecting their buzzword into it. Take any topic + your buzzword = SEO Gold for the ignorant masses. It's the same way politicians and religious zealots repeat phrases to gain public acceptance. Remember; if you're stuck in a room full of people that all believe the same thing (church, political rally, Tim Ferriss meet-up, etc.) perhaps it's time to take a stepback and reexamine some other sources for information.

Note: I never read these books, but I did skim through them at the Library after someone brought it up on here last time. So suffice it to say, this guy is just a new-age scammer, about the same as Dr. Oz, Tony Robbins, or Joe Mihalic. Save your money, and stay the fuck away.

On a related note, I do recommend books that teach you actual skills, such as David Allen's GTD system (which I use and have found to be a very effective system) and books like What Smart Students Know which has helped me to increase my grades and increase the quality of studying, not through rhetoric or useless catch-phrases and buzzwords, but by teaching you a system that is actionable, adaptable to different subjects, and can be fine tuned based on individual preference (since no 'system' can truly work for all individuals, unlike self-help books which have to be widely applicable and non-specific). For more information on how much luck actually plays into a person being successful, check out these sobering articles:

http://www.cracked.com/article_17055_7-celebrity-careers-that-launched-by-accident.html

http://www.cracked.com/article_19376_5-scientific-reasons-your-idea-happiness-wrong.html

http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/05/paul-allen-201105

And stay away from Bullshit! Did I say 'Bullshit' enough? Bullshit!