November 29, 2009 (Catholic education, Catholic schools)

How to Get Better Grades and Have More Fun

Steve Douglass and Al Janssen

Success Factors Publications

ISBN 579020003

Are you concerned about your grades dropping in University and having enough time for fun, games and extracurricular activities? If so, then this book is a must read for you. This book takes the 80/20 principle and applies it to academics. The authors of this book so believe in it, it has a written guarantee that if you apply it, your average will go up 1 grade point or your money back. The best thing is, not only does it work, it is easy to apply. The longest chapter is 12 pages and with just 12 chapters it is a chapter a week for a term and you will peak for your exams.

You might be asking yourself, “What is the 80/20 principle?” It was a business term developed by Richard Koch and it seems to be pretty consistent, one of those great patterns in the chaos of the universe. Take McDonalds as an example: 80% of McDonald’s profit comes from fries and drinks, the other 20% of their profit comes from everything else on the menu. Or take real estate: a friend’s father owns a real estate office; 80% of the sales consistently come from 20% of the realtors, the other 20% of sales comes from the rest.

You’re probably wondering, “What does this have to do with school?” A lot! This book will teach you how to do school better, and I can personally vouch for it. My first time in University I had a 58 average. I have read this book a few times since being here at The University of Waterloo and I have an over 80 cumulative average. I have given away over a dozen copies of this book and every person who has read it has thanked me for the book and the help it has been.

I’ll give you a personal example. A few years back, I took the Introduction to Church History Course RS 230 with Arnold Snyder; the first week of the class I asked him his objective for the course. He told us this will be your final exam question, “You’re sitting at your Christmas dinner and your uncle Buck says ‘So I hear you took the history of Christianity course, tell me the story in your own words’.” So instead of doing my usual and making tons of charts of names, dates, place and theories, I focused on the story – being able to tell the history clearly, concisely, and simply in my own words. I saved hours and hours of work and time spent memorizing just because I knew the objective for the course.

This book will be worth the $15 to get it. You can order it from http://www.campuscrusade.com/Books/Better-Grades-More-Fun.htm for $7.99 USD there is also a good article outlining some of the basics at http://linczone.com/articles/bettergrades.htm Check it out – it’s guaranteed!

(First Published in Imprint 2005-09-14 as ‘Is your objective very visible?’)

Steven McEvoy works full time as an IT professional, but his passion is learning. As a result he is part time mature student at St. Jerome’s University at the University of Waterloo, in Waterloo Ontario in the Religious Studies Program.

His personal blog is http://bookreviewsandmore.ca/

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