Are there any college level books or resources with tips on becoming an A student ?

Resources, or books for college students or students in general with tips and tid bits on how to get very good grades , such as all A's , with some kind of helpful information, and tips on studying etc... ? Are there any college level books or resources with tips on becoming an A student ?
If you go to amazon.com and type in "good grades" you'll find a lot. Here are a couple:



What nerds don't want you to know:

http://www.amazon.com/What-Nerds-Dont-Wa鈥?/a>



101 ways to get straight A's:

http://www.amazon.com/101-Ways-Get-Strai鈥?/a>



Professor's guide to getting good grades in college:

http://www.amazon.com/Professors-Guide-G鈥?/a>



I must have read dozens while I was in school but, to be completely honest, they rarely helped me. what I've found helped me more than anything else to get A's in college were 3 things: the way I took notes, and the way I shifted my interest in class and negotiation.



I started taking notes differently. Less is more. Don't try to write down everything the teacher is saying. Write only key points and write clearly so that you'll remember them later. Notes aren't meant to be a summary of what happened in the lecture. They're meant to remind you of what you already heard. Once you heard the 'trigger' you'll remember what was said in the lecture. Your brain remembers more than you realize-- you just have to jar that memory. Students often fail because they're trying too hard to sound intelligent and don't have the write 'trigger' for their memory, so they write a paragraph full of crap to try and cover the fact that they have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.



You can also try rewriting your notes over and over or writing your notes even shorter on a piece of paper, then seeing how much you can remember by just looking at those shorthand notes. That way, as soon as you see the keyword on the test, you remember that trigger word and the lecture will come back to you.



My alma mater has a nice section on how to take effective notes and good listening techniques here:

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~acskills/succe鈥?/a>



That being said, the greatest notes in the world won't matter if you clearly don't understand or remember the topic. So you have to change how you listen/watch, which is usually the most difficult thing for people to do. For me, it was as simple as pretending that I was watching a tv show. I find that I can be watching the dumbest show in the world and 3 years later i'll still remember the lines from the actors. It's because I'm a much more visual person. So try to listen and watch the professor as thought he's telling a really interesting story or as though you were watching a discovery channel show or something. I even gave each lecture an 'episode title' which sounds dumb but I swear it worked! If you're interested in something, obviously you're going to remember more about it.



If you remember things that you hear better, ask the professor if it would be alright to record lessons on a tape recorder- most professors don't mind. if you explain that you have a hard time focusing in class and that you need to hear things more than once, she/he may completely understand and then you can replay the lessons whenever you want. I was in a class of all men - i was the only girl- so i felt sort of self-conscious all the time for some weird reason. I explained this to the professor and asked if i could bring in a tape recorder and he didn't mind as long as it didn't make noise.



finally, don't be afraid of negotiating grades with your profs. i found many teachers are willing to up your grade if you try explaining your point of view, or offer to write a 1 page paper on the questions you got wrong in order to make up the grade. It's a bit more work but if it brings you from a C to an A... it's worth it. And a lot of times, if the professor sees you working that hard, they'll give you the A anyway, even if you weren't quite there. Professors don't like failing people unless they've given them reason to. And they often appreciate having someone in class who's trying so hard.



And while it's completely unethical, I am guilty of cheating a few times. In some subjects, you have to accept that you may just not ever be able to understand or remember everything. I simply have NO ability to do math above an algebraic level. I was an adult going back to school so the math that colleges are expecting now are waaaay above what I learned when I was in high school (nevermind how long it's been since I've used it!). So I admit I would tape record equations and use ear buds to play and listen to them as i was taking the test. And while I don't condone cheating all the time, I also don't think you should worry about losing grants, scholarships or even the GPA because of one stupid class that you're forced to take that has nothing to do with your major. I have absolutely no reason to use college level math in my real life and if I'd failed that class, I would have lost a scholarship. Hell no! So cheating... yeah sometimes. ; )