How To Become A Straight-A Student

Newport challenges the conventional belief that academic excellence requires grinding through endless hours of study by exposing the fundamental flaws in typical student study methods. Most college students rely on “rote review”—the repetitive reading and re-reading of notes and textbooks—which Newport argues is both inefficient and exhausting. This approach fails because it demands enormous time investment while producing minimal learning outcomes, often leading to all-nighters and mediocre grades. Newport presents an alternative paradigm: Studying is a skill that can be mastered through superior techniques rather than brute force time investment.

Newport uses a basketball analogy that illustrates this principle: Students using rote review are like players shooting underhand, while straight-A students have discovered the jump shot. This comparison reflects broader educational theories about skill acquisition and “deliberate practice,” a concept popularized by researcher Anders Ericsson, author of the book Peak.

Newport’s first concrete strategy involves transforming note-taking from passive transcription to the active identification of big ideas. For non-technical courses like history, literature, and psychology, he advocates organizing notes around a question-evidence-conclusion structure that captures the underlying intellectual framework professors use when presenting big ideas—identifying the central question being explored, recording the supporting evidence discussed, and formulating clear conclusions that synthesize the material.