What Smart Students Know: Maximum Grades. Optimum Learning. Minimum Time. | 
 enlarge | Author: Adam Robinson
Publisher: Three Rivers Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.00
Buy Used: $2.95
You Save: $14.05 (83%)
New (38) Used (67) Collectible (2) from $2.95
Rating:  65 reviews
Sales Rank: 5764
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 7.5 x 0.8
ISBN: 0517880857
Dewey Decimal Number: 371.3028
EAN: 9780517880852
ASIN: 0517880857
Publication Date: July 27, 1993
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: read a couple times in good condition fast ship cheap
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Starting from the premise that successful students are not necessarily any more brilliant than their less successful peers, but have simply mastered the art of efficient learning, Adam Robinson introduces high school and college students to an innovative approach that can help them achieve top grades while discovering the joy of true learning. Line drawings.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 60 more reviews...
 Highly unrealistic! June 28, 2008
Zhongguohua88
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Although the author have good intentions, the author had clearly been out of college for a long time before writing this book. He suggests that students approach every reading assignments as a twelve-step process. He asks you to write down what you already know about the subject, what you expect to learn, read the assignment 3 separate times, write and rewrite your notes, create charts and graphics, pictures, and devise mnemonics to memorize concepts.
This might help a highly-ambitious high school student with nothing productive to do with his time, but it is impossible to apply in college. The author gives a 1 page sample and spends 200 pages explaining how to take notes on this single page. Doing every steps he advocates takes hours for a single page; how can you expect to do all this if you have to read thousands of pages, which is what colleges usually require. This book does not delivers on it's title.
For a good study-guide written by an actual college student who describes methods that are successfully used by real students and not a simple hypothetical method, get Cal Newports How to Become a Straight-A Student: The Unconventional Strategies Real College Students Use to Score High While Studying Less.
 Good, not excellent March 25, 2008
Joao Miguel Oliveira (Portugal)
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
Adam Robinson presents some interesting advice. However, the book keeps repeating itself and it seems to assume that we have infinite time to study. It is better suit to high school than college.
 Clever Marketing Ruse? No Way! Robinson is a Genius February 5, 2008
Jared Daar
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Just over a year ago, I was walking through Borders when I noticed this book and laughed to myself at its prominently displayed and cliched promise of MAXIMUM GRADES.
"Oh great, I've seen this before," I thought. "Only suckers and suckers' parents buy these books, anyway." I walked away.
After all, who doesn't want maximum grades? Or, for that matter, a shorter waistband, to become a magnet for beautiful women, or to have an instant multi-million dollar bank account?
This was some kind of scheme, right? WRONG!!! VERY, VERY WRONG!!!
I was not a bad student when I bought What Smart Students Know, but I certainly was not a SMART student either. I can proudly say, as a soon-to-graduate high school senior who has meticulously applied Robinson's methods in my own life (and seen my grades go up DRAMATICALLY as a result), that THIS IS A BOOK THAT CHANGES PEOPLE- NOT JUST ACADEMICALLY, BUT PHILOSOPHICALLY AND EVEN EMOTIONALLY.
Perhaps the single most powerful element of Robinson's book is his promise of OPTIMUM LEARNING. Not the most readily graspable concept, I understand. But it's there... AND HE MEANS IT.
At a time when more and more students are applying to Ivy League colleges and when universities are becoming increasingly discerning of high school performance, it's easy to loose sight of what's really important in the rat race for an A.
Robinson refuses...no... DEMANDS his readers to preserve, both in themselves and their communities, the understanding that grades are nothing more than a necessary evil, and that they should not dictate either a student's self-esteem or his drive to learn, challenge, and better himself.
For those of you who at this point are thinking exactly what I was when I first saw this book, take note:
I speak NOT from the view of a student who was desperately failing in school when he bought this book- quite the contrary- but from that of a CONVERTED SKEPTIC who has found a textual diamond in the rough. I've never liked school, but this book taught me how to handle and exploit it without wasting any time.
Top FIVE Lessons I learned from What Smart Students Know:
5. The first step in the learning process is about recognizing one's purpose in learning: Why am I studying zoology, anyway? What do I already know about zoology? Is the primate chapter more or less important that than the amphibians one?
4. How to listen in class... Not all lectures were created equally. Crazy as it now seems, I used to delude myself that they were.
3. How to take notes... don't waist your time rewriting everything... repetition, obsessive re-reading, and, worst of all, rote memorization can get you good grades- maybe even perfect grades- but they can only erect an illusory monument of REAL, LONG-LASTING, PERSONALLY MEANINGFUL LEARNING.
2. Attitude is everything. Don't get me wrong, School sucks. But that shouldn't get in the way of your education (c.f. Mark Twain)!
1. YOU ARE YOUR OWN BEST TEACHER... PERIOD.
Near the beginning of the book, Robinson aptly quotes Winston Churchill in saying, "I am always ready to learn, but I do not always like being taught."
Churchill's call should resonate with every high school and college student in America.
What is the educational crisis really about? Robinson asks. It is the fruition of a long history of misconceptions about how students think and learn. Education begins with the STUDENT, not the system that "educates" him.
In What Smart Students Know, readers of all levels ("whether you're getting straight A's or struggling for C's") will meet their ally in Robinson. His aim is to debunk conventional wisdoms and rewire students, academically and philosophically, to learn with SELF-SUFFICIENCY... and teach them to get straight A's along the way without it becoming an all-consuming motive.
Time Saver and Eye Opener January 20, 2008
Oren (New York, New York)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
I got this book along with The Rocket Review, The Rocket Review Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to the New SAT (Third Edition) (Rocketreview Revolution: The Ultimate Guide to the New SAT) which I wrote a review on as well, because it really is my favorite SAT book. Either way, I never made time to read "What Smart Students Know" until I was bored on the train coming home. I usually never buy into these books that promises improvements in grades or even SAT's instantly, but this is actually a book that I ended up taking to college because I found it so useful.
The way the author writes is straight, so there isn't time wasted on trying to figure out what the author is trying to tell you, it is easy to follow. The graphics are great, it's funny and I will be honest it really does show you most efficient way to learn as much as you want to learn, and get whatever GPA you want to get. It is a book that I strongly recommend and because it isn't expensive and it isn't a hard read or long I don't understand why anyone wouldn't spend $15 and actually get a book that, depending on what you want to do with it, will help you save time, and open your eyes in school. In my class I had a really good friend, who never studied yet, would come into class, finish a test in half the time and get an A. While I study for hours at night, and wake up early in the morning to study one more time so its fresh in my head. I started reading this book, and it essentially became my guide because it is a book that you don't have to sit and read through all at once but you can use it as a reference and that is why it is so useful, it lowers stress for studying because it tells you what is most effective in order to get that A.
Bottom Line: You don't buy the book to get a 200 on your IQ test, rather, it is a book that teaches you how to get the best grades in school and not have to spend hours.
Accelerated Learning January 2, 2008
Lars Tackmann (Copenhagen, Denmark)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
I was skeptical about this book when I received it, my brain yelled waste of money and time (properly due to its ridiculous subtitle). This nagging thought stayed with me through the first few pages where the author raved on and on how much my life would improve due to his little book. But I persisted and alas I cannot find words to express how happy I am about this choice.
The author shows you how to learn any subject so it sticks, without the classical emphasis on repetition. Here for the fist time was I explained how to positively control and use the thoughts that hurl though my head when I read something. How to keep up focus when the text is just plain boring and keep your head clear when you are absolutely lost in a hard subject.
Not a simple feat and I am baffled as to why one can go though almost 20 years of public school, high school, college and university without ever being thought how to learn efficiently.
I often get remarks from my colleagues about how I master my field, and just how smart I must be, but all I can ever tell them is that I am as stupid (or gifted) as the rest of you. The only difference is that when I now open a book, I do it with a purpose, with a plan. I am going to rule this subject and master it completely.
Since reading this book I have begun telling everyone about it (to the degree where I even thought about mailing a copy to the ministry of education) - it really is that good. So If you want to go into the exam room with that extra zing of self consciousness, knowing that you cannot fail, that the best grade is marked for you, then read this book.
|
|
|
