How To Get That A+ In Every Course

Shelly here. Hello medhopeful readers…! First of all, I apologize for not posting at all this summer. To make up for it, I promise to post regularly, starting now.

School has started up again, and seeing the first year medical students in our building definitely makes me feel like an old school veteran. Next year will be the start of clerkship for me and I am very excited to be out of the classroom. As this will be my last year in full-time classroom and lecture (hurray), I wanted to summarize a few lessons I’ve learnt through my many years of class, from high school to university to medical school. In this post, I will share with you a mish-mash of all the things that, I think, helped me get the 90+ (A+) in my courses. Hopefully everyone will gain at least something from reading this post and be able to use any of my strategies/tips to improve their grades, if that is what they wish to do.

First off, you might ask: in which courses did I get the A+, or more importantly, which ones did I fail to do so? The simple answer is that I was able to pull off the 90 throughout high school till now, with a few important exceptions such as grade 9 gym and art (I like to blame it on the facts that I’m short and artistically challenged, respectively, haha), three courses in the second term of third year (I think I was too busy with medical school interviews and burnt out from school), and more recently, a couple of tests in first year medical school (the material was too much for me to handle and I have to admit that didn’t allocate my time properly).

Time, time, time


Alright, so now that we’ve satisfied everyone’s curiosity, I want to start off with an important belief of mine regarding academics. I believe that (exempting exceptional cases) anyone can get a good mark. You just need to devote time, time, and more time to material. Obviously, how much time is needed varies on the individual. Everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are different and everyone learns at a different pace. Visual learners may find it hard to adapt to lecture-style classes, but if more time is put into it, visual learners can perform just as well as others.

It is also important to understand that each course requires a different amount of time. When a course starts, I always try to “assess” the course outline. What is the marking scheme? How much of the marking scheme am I comfortable with? For instance, my strengths lie in multiple choice questions and my weak points are in term papers and projects. I would ask myself, how much of this course is multiple choice worth? If it’s very little, I know that I will have to put in a lot more time and effort. Am I prepared and willing to put in this time? In the instance of undergrad organic chemistry, I realized that it was not your typical multiple choice course and I prepared myself to put in a lot of time working on learning the reaction mechanisms, doing extra problems, redoing the mandatory problems again and again…all in all, I put a lot of time in orgo. The result? Awesome grades for organic chem I. I ended up liking orgo enough to take Orgo II, Orgo II lab, and Orgo III. Anything is possible!

Motivation & Commitment

No one is perfect. And to think that a 100 or a 90 in a course can be easily done is definitely not the right thing to be thinking (for most people in most circumstances). Whenever I approach a course, I understand that it’s going to a tough job if I want that 90. There is stuff to be learnt in each course, and if you ask a professor what it takes to get a 90, I’m sure most of them will answer something along the lines of “mastery” or “deep understanding” of the material.

In my second year in undergrad, I took a course on Witchcraft. It was a very popular first year religion studies course, and the course was graded with two multiple choice exams. Having heard that the material was easy and interesting (i.e. a “bird course”), I decided to take it as one of my elective courses. I discarded my usual study strategies, I became uncommitted to the course, and thought that I could cruise through the course. After the first midterm, I was shocked at the level of difficulty. I remember that a number of students had also found it hard and outright failed the midterm. I then took the course seriously, gave it the time it deserved, and studied a lot harder for the final. I then found it to be a lot easier, manageable, and quite interesting. Lesson of the day: There is no such thing as a bird course, if you want a 90. Any course needs work, and you have to respect the material if you want to do well.

What do I mean by “respecting the material”? It means to appreciate the fact that any course is tough and in order to get 90 in it, it will requires at least a 90% effort from you (assuming the course is fair). Are you willing to give up on that party the weekend before an exam that you haven’t finished studying for? It all depends on your motivation and commitment to the grades. Is it important to you? All in all, if you really want the good mark, and are willing to sacrifice the occasional things for it, you’ll go far.

Study Strategies

This is what you probably expected to find when you first started to read this post. I actually placed this section last because I think that it’s the least important. I believe that you can often do very well if you have already put in the time and the motivation, regardless of your individual study strategy.

Of course there are different studying strategies, and I have my own preferred ones. For memory courses like biology (or medical school in general), I like to write my own notes out and mainly study from those. I admit that it is a very time consuming process, and if I’m tight for time, I won’t do it. It’s all variable really. I’ve tried using flashcards for a bit in med school, but I found it to be even more time consuming than writing notes and the cost/benefit ratio to not be very favourable. I love problem-solving courses, such as physics and some chemistries, which often prove to be the least tedious for me. I play music and just spend the study time doing all the problems that I can lay my hands on.

“Cramming”

One last word before I wrap up this post. Is cramming okay?

Yes! I think that cramming is perfectly acceptable. I’m living proof that cramming works. Josh is too. It’s a fact of life because often there is not enough time to study everything, and cramming can help you do well. However, if you are looking for long-term memory of the material, cramming might not be the best way to go about studying material. Reviewing stuff that you’ve crammed after the test will help it get into those deep drawers of your brain.