Have you had the experience of not doing well in a subject and aimed merely to pass it? Subsequently, the result would often be a D7, or on other luckier occasions a C6?
By planning for a Pass on lets say English, we are essentially setting ourselves up for a C6 or lower. The moment that your sights are set on only a pass, you tend to work subconsciously in that direction.
-Passing it will do-
Lets say for example we have Math test coming up. We need only 50% to pass it, so lets just do our minimal. As we sit in classes, we allow ourselves to relax 50% of the time. Why? Because we know subconsciously that only 50% of the material need to be absorbed to get our pass. Relax! As we look through the text book in our revision, we instinctively give up on the tougher concepts and move on quickly. We won't have much time in our last minute revision to go through everything anyway. Again, we pick up only approximately 50% of the full knowledge. In actual fact, it might be much less considering some of us might not have practiced! Come exams, coupled with some careless mistakes we are bound to commit, it leaves us with a rough 45/100 score.
-I want to ace it!-
What if we changed tack and adopted a different mentality. We are 3 weeks away from a Maths test, but already plan to score 90/100 for it! 90 sounds like a big deal, especially if you are no longer in the primary school or kindergarten system. Well in that case we have to be 100% attentive in all of Mr Tan's classes! Alright, so what if I feel a bit sleepy in his class, it wouldn't hurt to take a short break right? No! I need to understand every single concept he is explaining if I want my 90%! Seems like I can't skip the difficult questions in my revision as well. They will for sure appear in the tests. I will find ways and means of getting to understand those questions. Hey, I can ask my smarter friends, my older brother, direct the question to my teacher, or just sit here and figure it all out. Come the exams, throwing a bit of marks away to carelessness, I still have about 80 marks left. This is easily an A1!
You can see from these two examples that our actions can be guided in the right direction if we aim for the right thing right from the start, by which I mean a 90/100 or better yet, full marks. The mentality that your subconscious mind calibrates to is largely based on what we set out to achieve.
Even if you are happen to be a very weak student in lets say English, don't just aim to pass it. You will be employing all the wrong strategies and half-hearted efforts that simply lead you to fail it by 5 marks. See how your attitude changes when you aim a few grades higher, say B4 or B3.
The author is formally a student from Temasek Junior College, one of the top education institutions in Singapore. Singapore is renowned in Asia for its rigorous academic curriculum.
The author has founded a tuition matching agency and is highly attuned to the education system of Singapore. http://www.acetutors.com.sg
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Justin_Hua_Xing_Lee
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