Successful students practice good study habits like doing practice exams, participating in class, completing assignments, and briefly reviewing material each day. They develop self-discipline by avoiding distractions and cutting out things like TV and social media when doing homework. They also show resilience by persevering when they fail and continuing to work hard. The most important factors in student success are not IQ but developing effective study skills and managing time well with a study schedule.

1. C H A R A C T E R E D : M A R C H 2 0 1 7
Becoming College & Career
Ready

2. Learning Target
 I can begin to be College & Career Ready now by:
 Learning and practicing good study habits
 Knowing what resources are available to help me be successful
 Setting goals that are important to me now and in my future
 Exploring education and career options and information
 Acting on goals and dreams

3. What successful students do…
 Research across several countries tells us what the most
important things are that successful students do:
 You might think it has to do with IQ… with your
intelligence. Of course this plays a part, but it is not the
most important factor in being successful in school.
 IQ is NOT the #1 predictor of how well a student will
perform. 13 other variables were more effective in
predicting students performance.
 Adapted from TED talks What Do Top Students Do
Differently? – Douglas Barton

4. The most successful students…
 Participate in practice exams
 Top students do more practice exams than other students. This
is a good predictor of how students will perform on future
exams. Practice any time you have the opportunity.
 Doing your assignments and participating in class gives you
the information to do well on the tests.
 Therefore… it is important to do each assignment and briefly
review them at the end of each day.

5. Self-Discipline
 Being able to turn off the TV, put your phone down,
stop watching cat videos on YouTube, and removing
distraction plays a huge part in focusing on your
homework.
 Cut out the distractions!!!

6. Resilience
 When you fail, you must pick yourself back up, dust
yourself off, and keep going!
 Everyone will fall at some point. We all get busy, we
forget to do an assignment or two… we might get
sick, overwhelmed, or get behind. The important
thing is to do the best you can and start working
again.

7. What successful students do…
 You might think that JUST working hard is the most important
thing. While working hard is very important, just because you
work hard doesn’t mean you will be successful.
 Here’s what this means: Michael Jordon said it best, “If you
shoot 10,000 balls and you’ve got bad technique, then you’re
going to get really good at shooting badly.”
 If you want to do well, you must work hard. However, if you have
inadequate study skills and use them more often, and expect a
different result in the end, the results will not be successful. This
is when disengagement begins and students give up.

8. Study Skills
 Make sure you have good study skills! If you don’t,
and you need some ideas… check out this site or get a
list from Mrs. Roane!
 www.howtodothings.com

9. The most successful students…
 Read over their notes and review the information
they learned throughout the day.
 This might be a hand out from your teacher, a power
point on their blog, notes you have taken, reading
through the summary in your textbook, etc.
 Take a few minutes at the end of the day to review
what you’ve learned.

10. The most successful students…
 Schedule a study timetable.
 Managing your time and putting aside time for
homework the same general time each day is
extremely helpful in making sure you have enough
time to complete your homework. Scheduling in fun
things and extracurricular activities also helps in
knowing you have something to look forward to as a
reward.
 A calendar or planner is great for this!