You're a good student and you know it. You have the potential to get into the college of your dreams. You're cruising along with a strong A average, and suddenly, out of nowhere, you take a big hit to your GPA that brings you down to mediocre status. How does this happen?
Teachers often give students several weeks to work on a research paper. Unfortunately, many students use this long preparation time as an excuse to put off all work for a week or so. This can turn into a disaster, because students can discover that all the good resources are used up, checked out, or unavailable by the time they get around to gathering their own evidence.
We all love to hit the snooze button in the morning, but some of us abuse the privilege. If you show up late for class too often, you can be penalized. Some teachers will dock your grade for habitual lateness. But there is a bigger danger with hitting to snooze button too many times. If you end up running out the door at the last possible moment every day, you are absolutely certain to forget important items and assignments at some point.
What a nightmare! You go to the trouble of finishing your assignment, but then you forget to put it in your backpack in the morning! Forgetting your homework is a double whammy: you suffer the loss of a grade and you blame yourself for taking such an unnecessary hit to your grade point average.
Have you ever walked into a classroom to discover (to your surprise) that the teacher is handing out an exam? It’s not a good feeling. If you don’t prepare, you won’t perform well, and one bad exam result can turn a great GPA into a mediocre GPA. If you want to stand out when it comes to applying to colleges, you have to mark every test date on your calendar and give it your all! One way to make sure you have plenty of time to prepare for tests is to color-code your planner. Place a colored warning sticker in your planner to indicate that an exam date is approaching.
Simply put, time management and organization skills will make or break you as a student. If you note every important due date and every exam, and you check your planner every night before you go to bed, you will be much more likely to perform well in class.
