A call to the ‘C’ students!

Are you a C student? Is it the case that no matter how hard you try to prepare for your examinations you are scarcely able to do better than a C or a D? Well, it is the dream of a student to see a results slip with straight As. Generally though, such results tend to belong to just a few of us. So what do the rest do? Well if you are a C student, this article is for you. The first thing is, relax and do not despair. In our examination-focused educational systems, the pressure of success and maintaining good grades in school is ever present, and rightly so. With the complexities of modern life, educators constantly remind and admonish students to excel. It is reasoned that without good grades one would become a failure. The pressure to perform well in school therefore contributes to greater stress on the part of students. So what is a C student to do? Poor or less than expected examination results can tear into a person’s self-esteem. More so, with parents and teachers breathing down your neck. So what can you do? The first thing to remember is that you are not alone. Throughout history, there have been many people who succeeded in life in spite of their grades in school. Interestingly, this roll of honour includes Albert Einstein. Albert Einstein’s teachers in school imagined him to be a dim-wit. Yet, who in his right mind today would refer to Einstein in those terms? Secondly, a closer look at your results slip will probably demonstrate that you are not a failure in everything. It is likely that there are one or two subjects that you happen to enjoy. Perhaps, you have a natural flair for language, at the cost of your numeracy skills. Or it may be that you crunch figures very easily but are very poor at prose. The examples are clichéd but they help put across what I am saying. As a C student note the subjects that you are good at and use them as building blocks for a future career. However, this strategy is a long-term one. What can you do in the meantime? One, talk to your subject teachers to find out how you can create a partnership for success. It will mean going the extra mile. While still in school eliminate the word impossible from your vocabulary. Believe that whichever the subject, so long as you are willing to apply yourself, you will be able to succeed. Look at the difficulty not as an obstacle to your success, but as a challenge that you have to, and can overcome. Various methods have been advocated for effective studying. One that you can use to help you retain more of what you study is the SQ3R method. The first S stands for Survey. When you open your notebook or textbook, survey the contents of what you are going to study that evening. This gives you an overview of the material. Q stands for Question. Find out from the material what kind of questions to expect, and write them down. It helps to be as thorough in doing this as possible. The first R stands for Read. At this point you read to understand. It requires reading with the aim of retaining the material and answering the questions raised in the previous stage. The second R stands for Remember. The call at this stage involves closing your book and trying to recall from memory all the things that you have read. The objective at this point is to train your mind in the powers of retention, something that is very critical in an examination setting. There are a number of memory devices including mnemonics among others that you can use. The last R stands for Read. You read reinforce everything that you have studied at that particular session. It has been claimed that if this method is correctly applied one can retain as much as 60 percent of what one has read. So, why not give it a try? It might just improve your grades! It also does some good to talk out your feelings. If you begin to feel that the expectations are too high, that the pressure is so intense, look for someone to confide in. The academic environment can exact a toll, so let it out. Do not try to carry all of it by yourself. jonweru@yahoo.es