How can I become one of those Geeks who can do VERY well on exams without much efforts?

You either have it in you, or you don’t.

you have to want it. i mean its like you want to go to work to earn a pay check or you call in to work and don’t get paid.

You can’t. You get what you put into it. You don’t put much effort in, you don’t get much out. That’s just how it is.

You’re asking for a magic formula for getting something for nothing.

There are some people with great natural abilities for a certain subject or test taking. If you’re not one of them, you gotta study more. Life is hard.

I think the first thing is know where you stand and what you want in life? Everyone is born with a set of intelligence , you may say life is not fair because some people are born gifted. Those who are gifted could spend lesser hours with their books and achieve the same result while others need to work hard. Nothing is fair in life. All I am saying is look at how much you want to achieve and put in the amount of effort based on ur capability. Don’t compare with others too much.

This may not be the question for me…
But, you gotta try, and if your grades are already good then just keep on going. And if you can’t do don’t pop your brain with all that info you might not need.

It is an illusion. People who are good at things make them look easy, but they got to that point (of making it look easy) by working really hard. They also love what they are studying.

Thanks for these quick responses!

It is not that I dont wanna put much effort into it, I just wanna know how can I become like them? Can anyone give me an approximation of the amount I have to read? or any way to help me not to get bored of reading and studying?

thanks again!

Just try your best. If that fails use the force.

I really wish that Fluther had a “best of” kind of like craigslist. This question is up there with the cake question in my mind.

@Marina Exactly!!! I was one of those geeks in high school, but the way I got that way was by loving reading and learning things. One of my favorite things to do was to sit looking things up in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, not just the main article, but also all the references. My favorite place to hang out was at the library. If this sounds incredibly boring and nerdy to you, then you’ll have to put in the hours some other way. For instance, by studying long hours every night.

But whether you do it the way I did, for the love of it, or the way the “non-geeks” did, by putting in the hours, you’ll have to do it. Mastery of anything never comes naturally, only by hard work.

Listen to @Marina and @PapaLeo – there’s no such thing as an “instant geek” (just add water!!). However, here’s my advice:

Do all your schoolwork to build up a general knowledge base, and aside from that, read up on things that interest you. Go to the library and take out books that sound awesome. If that’s fantasy books about dragons, great, if it’s textbooks about World War II, go with that, if it’s scientific journal articles, get some reading glasses and go to it. If you attempt to learn about things that you have no interest in, that will be a waste of your time. Yeah, you’ll know a few more things, but learning them will be boring and you won’t use the knowledge thereafter. People who seem like “instant geeks” have just found what they love.

Thank you all!

@Marina said it perfectly. You need to find a way to love it. You need to chage your idea about school work. That is the force that will keep you going at anything.

If you have to ask this question then you will undoubtedly never achieve what you are looking for. It’s done at an early early age with guidance from your parents/counselors/friends.

@tested9111 I don’t think that means it can’t be done later. It means more hard work.

I am lazy and really stupid when i was young and even now. i mean it LOL.

But i have a few good traits in me; perserverance, competitive, and hardworking. I use that and work my way up passing all those smart but lazy ones in class. Understand your own capability, be competitive ( in a healthy way), mix around with people that shares the same goal.

Seriously, exams are nothing but to obtain that piece of paper that everyone looks at when you enter univeristy and when you start finding job. I made that mistake tho i was told. Understanding and loving what you learn is more important. Just take for example, if my ambition is to be a doctor, why would I want to cramp dates and names into my brain knowing that my capability is limited. Wouldnt it be useful for me to concentrate on subs like chemistry and biology and excel really well in it and forgo history? I would have made that choice if i was given a chance knowing how crappy my memory and understanding is now.

I am one of those who test well. While growing up, I always thought it was a natural ability… something I was born with. Looking back, I can see that part of it was the fact that I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. Part of it was also almost certainly the fact that I had an excellent memory (ah, those were the days!). I never had to study before a test, as long as I’d read or heard the information during class or homework.

For the reading part, read what you love and read a lot of it. As for the memory component, there are various ways to work on improving your memory. Do a google search and see what you think might work for you.

people who excel at taking tests do so because they know the material. plain and simple. the only thing you get out of life is whatever you put in my friend.

i know some nerdy ppl. and the funny thing is I notice some of them have a less than social life…
They don’t go out or hang with friends… they stay home. And what do they do home? all by themselves.. they suck up knowledge. Maybe it’s like a time filling activity. Some people like to do other things to distract themselves from what they don’t want to face. One of those distractions can studying as well.

But you can also just like the subjects really much and be eager to learn. For some getting a 9 out of 10 still feels like they failed.

I’m a “don’t study, and Ace it” person… or at least i was in high school.
For one, I’ll start by saying that much of it is genetics.
Asian blood never hurt, and asian blood comes from asian parents (who, stereotypically, think that an A- is failing, and a 1500 on the SAT is NOT GOOD ENOUGH). Being smart/successful is part of my culture, and even though I really didn’t work on it, I still paid attention in class, and if there was something that didn’t make sense to me, I made sure it did… eventually. 90% of stuff, I got on the first time, and American high schools generally repeat it 3–1000 times.
For two, this might sound ridiculous, but I think being healthy helps… A LOT. When I don’t sleep enough, I do worse, and when I don’t eat right, I get distracted easier, and If I don’t have the dedication to myself to keep my body in shape… why would i expect my mind to be in shape? It might just be me though. Also, drug/alcohol use obviously isn’t helping too much. When you’re young, you can probably shrug off any negatives, but over time you’ll probably start going downhill. (at least, that’s what I’m saying to myself… while I’m still young)
Third: It’s more of a mindset than anything else, i think. If you have the type of mind that can understand calculus the first time you hear it, join the club. If you can’t… well, there’s a club for that too. It’s never hurt me (until quantum physics, at least), that everything is very quickly and easily put into mental pictures. For my mathy friends, things are put into formal logic terms or graphs. For the people I know that have worked their asses off, starting with learning the alphabet and everything more advanced: everything is meaningless until at least an hour of time goes into it. If it doesn’t mean ANYTHING… you might be having problems. (*something interesting: if you learn even a little bit of latin, TONS of stuff suddenly makes a whole lot more sense. I picked it up by hanging out with some of the nerdiest people ever, and because it’s listed along with definitions on the family dictionary… and I got a huge headstart on all of biology, English, and Spanish.)
Fourth: curiosity… does not kill. IT WASTES TIME (oh, god does it waste time). And, sometimes, that wasted time turns out to be useful for something later on. If you don’t know a word, guess, critique your guess, look it up, and then critique your guess again. I guess that this is kind of an extension of 3. Also, it bothers me that 90% of people don’t do this sort of thing. If you think something that’s kind of fishy, figure out why.
(EXAMPLE. Once, my friends made fun of me for talking to a fortuneteller for about 20 minutes. They said “everyone knows those things are just scams…”. For me, the logical reply is, “ok, say they scam someone who thinks that it’s real… so they learn it and practice it. Eventually, they’ll start up their own business… and because they once got scammed, they have become a true-believer in the art of fortunetelling. The logical outcome of you being right… is you being wrong!”)
Think of the logical outcome from the presented information. If A, then B, and If B, then C, means that If A, then C. (beware of bad logic though. Also, it turns out that Wikipedia is a pretty terrible place to learn logic and math… find something else.)
Thinking in if-then conditional statements is kind of obnoxious, because a lot of times you’ll hit a “i’d need more data…” And by “a lot” i mean 99% of the time. And also, it’s pretty impossible to remember all your side-thoughts. And also, You’ll generally think about random shit that nobody cares about. And also, a lot of the time, you’ll be unable to prove your theories (but, when you meet an expert on that field, you’ll find yourself either drawing a complete blank, or pouring out about 1000 unrelated questions that make them look at you like you’re crazy.)
Fifth: It’s not a recommended lifestyle. People will think you have too much time on your hands. You might actually have too much time on your hands. Also, you never learn how to study, and when you get to college, and suddenly have to actually learn something on your own, instead of just sit around while the teacher tells everyone around you how to do it 1000 times, you’ll be like “wtf is studying???”

IN CONCLUSION, because i’ve been typing a lot more than I meant to…
In high school, it’s definitely easy to be “one of those people”, especially if it’s in either your blood, brain, or culture (upbringing, mostly).
Not recommended, because you’ll end up pretty lazy.

Also,
I want to go ahead and refute the claim that you’ll not have a social life.
Who do you think the dumb people are gonna study with? And if you’re not studying ever, you tend to have free time like ridiculous…
Also, even the smart, shy people want to have friends.
Also, a lot of nerds are good looking.

it comes down to you to be perfectly honest. you’re not born great at calculus, you still have to work at it no matter who you are.

I don’t know how I was so good at testing, and what I was reading all the time usually wasn’t the class materials. All I can say is show up for class, pay attention, and feed your brain properly. The brain likes a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids and such.

The reason it was easy to take a test is because they put the work in earlier.
The true geek will have been curious enough to have already mastered the subject just for the heck of it.
It probably took plenty of effort but was entirely self-motivated and self-directed, so there is no strain associated with the topic.

People keep saying that it’s because others put work into it that you don’t see. That might be true in some cases, but I have to say that I legitimately did not do that in most classes. I showed up, payed attention, and took the tests or wrote the papers. Some people really can just take tests and retain information well. For me, I’m really good at the social sciences. Other people just naturally get math. Can’t say why, because I dropped my double Anthro/Psych major down to just Anthro before I graduated. :P

Yes, some folks are simply brilliant.
But I think the question can be taken more broadly than taking tests.
The real geek is boy scout (be prepared) meets McGyver.

To be ready for anything you’ve probably had your nose in some serious learning out of habit, on top of being brilliant.

If you’re ready for anything taking a test is recreational.

Yeah well do have to study. It’s like a game for me.I either study hard for something and pass it or I don’t.

You can’t just happen to have it :) Some people get As by studying 4 hours a day non-stop. Some study 10 minutes maximum and get the same grade. I literally never study. I am an okay student.

In high school, I was a constant C student except for Mid-term and Final-exams. I did so well in those exams that I was accused of cheating. They even made me take one test over again. I aced it and they shut up. What was my secret? Nothing special, I just kept good notes. There is something in the process that make you remember things you write down. Sometimes I didn’t even review my notes, I just took the test and the answers came to me.

So that’s my advice, take notes.