How to Study

Now What?
The fact that you have been honest with yourself in evaluating the
talents you bring to the study game is a big plus in your favor. Knowing
where you are strong and where you need to improve makes every-
thing else a good deal easier. Now, based on your test results, draw
up a list of your assets and liabilities—your areas of strength and
weakness. This will focus your attention on those areas that require
the most work to improve.
While I would strongly recommend you read the entire book, this
simple test has enabled you to identify the chapters you really need
to study and the specific skills that may require your continued atten-
tion long after you finish reading this book.
Chapter 1
■
How to Start Out Right
13

---

This page intentionally left blank 

---

W
hat effect can good study habits have? I suspect native-
born talents and skills—the basic abilities you’re born
with—have the most to do with success in school—
50 percent, maybe even 60. And the environment in which you’re
trying to learn, your health, and other such factors may account for
another 10 percent, maybe 15. That leaves 25 to 40 percent for study
skills.
Don’t believe that learning how to study can have such a monstrous
effect? First, read How to Study, practice the skills, and watch the
results. I think you’ll discover I’m right. Second, if you don’t believe
study skills are so important, you must believe something like “smart
kids do well because they’re smart.” Well, a lot of smart kids don’t do
well. At all. Others do well in school but test poorly. And many are
great in some subjects and not so great in others. I don’t have to prove
this. Look at your friends, at others in your school. I guarantee you’ll
prove it to yourself.
What kind of effort are we talking about here? Another hour a night?
Two hours a night? More? And what about that “study smarter, not
harder” slogan that’s associated with my How to Study Program? 
“If I’m studying longer,” you might reasonably contend, “I’m sure as
heck studying harder, at least by my definition.”
Chapter 2
How to Organize 
Your Studying
15

---

Let’s take the latter point first. You can study smarter. You can put in
less time and get better results. But learning how to do so is hard,
because learning of any kind takes discipline. And learning self-
discipline is, to many of us, the most difficult task of all. So don’t 
kid yourself: You aren’t going to sit down, skim How to Study, and
miraculously transform yourself from a C student to an A student.
But you absolutely can achieve such results if you put in the time to
learn the lessons this book contains and, more importantly, practice
and use them every day.
If you’re currently doing little or nothing in the way of schoolwork,
then you are going to have to put in more time and effort. How much
more? Or even more generally, how long should you study? Until you
get the results you want to achieve. The smarter you are and the
more easily you learn and adapt the techniques in How to Study,
the more likely you will spend less time on your homework than
before. But the further you need to go—from Ds to As rather than
Bs to As—the more you need to learn and the longer you need to
give yourself to learn it.
Don’t get discouraged. You will see positive results surprisingly quickly.