To all students : How to top the class?

Becoming a topper is not at all difficult but it is not a piece of cake also.

Topping the class is completely doable and yes, you can do it if you follow the road map I lay in front of you in this article by bx-zone.com.

‘How to top the class?’ is a question that comes more or less in the mind of every student who has never secured that first rank in the class.

However, by following a strategic approach you can achieve it.

Ofcourse, the approach lay out in the article is a combination of developing an attitude, rigjt habits, belief system, hard work, and consistency thus it requires you to shift your gears.

Diligently following the strategies listed in the article is the answer to a tough question of ‘How to become topper of the class?’

So without further ado, let's go through the strategies one by one.

Strengthen the belief system

‘How to top in whole school or class’ is a thought in the form of a question that arises from mind. Your mind has all the power.

Before following any strategy, before you use your hands, eyes, ears, and mouth to become a topper you need to first strengthen your belief.

You need to believe that you can be a topper in class, you will be a topper in class, you have become a topper in class.

Doing so will also develop your will to do all that is needed to succeed and also, it will get rid of any procrastination that will surely come your way while you're picking up a task.

How to strengthen your belief system?

But, the question is how do I believe to be a topper in class.

The solution is simple, all you need to do is say the following lines before you sleep and after you wake up.

‘I have become the class (class number) topper’

‘I have topped in class (class number)'

So, if you're in class 9 then you will say -

‘I have become the class 9 topper’

‘I have topped in class 9’

Repeating these lines over and over multiple times a day will increase the chances of manifesting what you want and moreover, it will provide the right energy to your mind to do all the necessary work to be at the top of your class.

Habits

To achieve a certain position in any domain, your habits play a major role.

And topping the class is no different where habits play a crucial part.

Just because we don't know the impact of habits, we underestimate their importance in our lives.

Let's take an example of a simple habit of studying for 1.5 hours without any distraction and full focus.

You must know that in order to become a topper in any class, all you require is finishing the entire syllabus on time but syllabus of any class, unless you're in kindergarten is huge.

You simply can't study for 15 mins and then distract yourself by picking up your phone, if you do it (many students do it) then you won't be able to meet your syllabus targets ever then how will you excel in class?

The solution is that you study relentlessly for 1.5 hours without any distraction and then take a break but you can't simply achieve the feat described above in just 1 day, you will have to keep practicing.

Thus, you will have to form a habit, so now you understand why good habits are necessary because slowly all your small efforts add up to produce extraordinary results.

Here are a few habits that you will have to form inorder to top in class -

1. Maintain physical and mental health

A sick student cannot top a class. You cannot write exams with one hand clutching your abdomen because of pain or wiping your nose.

Therefore, your mission to top in class starts with maintaining good physical health.

To keep your health in check, you need to eat right, thus eat light food, protein rich food, lots of green vegetables to build good immunity which keeps all the illnesses away.

Especially during exams, don't eat any outside food, avoid eating ice creams and drinking cold beverages.

If you take care of your physical health then 50% of the work needed to maintain mental health is done; however, you can meditate in the morning or do yoga asanas to deal with unnecessary stress and maintain focus.

2. Sacrifice

The one thing which is more common in toppers and not in normal students is sacrifice. Whether it is the time of your favorite sitcom or simply, you’re missing on the conversation that the guests are having in the next room with your parents, toppers sacrifice all.

Every minute important if you have to achieve a goal, every second is important when you want to see your name at the top of the list and for that you need to make a lot of sacrifice. There is obviously a class of people with a different mindset altogether. These people say that there is only 1 life & we must enjoy it but ask yourself at this moment, “there’s only 1 life should I waste it or use it to become a shining entity?”.

3. Social cut off

You must be wondering how social cutoff is different from sacrifice. You can say that sacrifice is a superset of social cutoff.

When you’re part of a family, or let’s say society, depending on the people surrounding you there are social gatherings, trips, and treks or simply grouping which act as time waster.

A topper tries to refrain him/her from these social engagements as much as possible. To attend these social engagements once every 3 months is okay but if you’re planning to do it once every fortnight or at any increased frequency then you’ll end up wasting your precious time which should be dedicated to studying.

Keep track of your time is very very important when you’re a student and are trying to score the highest marks in your school.

4. Early to bed, Early to rise

I have spoken with many toppers only to find out that the answer of how can I top in my class begins from the habit of rising early and sleeping early.

You will do wonders if you get up at 5 AM but to get up at 5 AM you need to sleep by 10 PM. But you need to make sure that you just don't sit on the bed in a sleepy state and simply get to study within 10 mins of opening your eyes.

The energy at 5 AM is very positive, if you use it to study tough topics then not only you will grasp it properly but you will be able to complete it in half the time.

To get some motivation of waking up at 5 AM you should know that many influential people of the world such as Mahatma Gandhi woke up at 5 AM.

Also, sleeping early and waking up early also helps in maintaining both physical and mental health.

I highly recommend that you work on a sleeping schedule in which you can adjust the time accordingly, but I warn you against sleeping late and waking up late in the morning as you will soon start feeling lazy and energy-deprived.

Therefore, it is very necessary that you build this habit.

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Developing these habits will put the groundwork for the strategies that follow next in this article so let's begin to know them -

1. Know your syllabus

a. Toppers study every bit of their syllabus

To become a topper in whole school or at least in your class, you need to have a thorough understanding of your syllabus.

A smart student always knows their syllabus to the core.

Knowing the syllabus helps you understand the academic distance that you have to cover till the start of exams.

A topper won't ever do selective study, they would always master the entire syllabus.

If you study the entire syllabus then first of all you will reduce your dependency on luck and increase it more on your studies.

b. Identify key topics and subjects

Identifying key topics in respective subjects is a smart strategy.

Not all topics carry equal proportion of marks, there are always topics and lessons that carry higher share of marks, and topics that are less important.

You need to make a list of topics in descending order of marks share. And pick up the topics to study that are difficult and carry higher marks share.

Once you have prepared such topics that are on top of your list, you will start feeling more confident in your preparation.

2. Be attentive in class

a. Keep your ears open in the class

There is a common trait among students who secure lower ranks in the class (I mean greater than 10) ,they are not good listeners.

Keeping your ears open in the class is a must , should you want to secure first rank in the class.

By being attentive in the class you're not only utilizing your school time to the fullest but are also completing half of the work of learning the lesson taught.

b. Sit at the first bench

If you feel a difficulty in focusing on what is being taught by the teacher then it would be better if you sat at the first bench.

Class toppers don't sit beyond row# 3 in the class.

There is a strong reason behind it.

By sitting in the front row, you are naturally attentive, because first, the teacher is close to you so you can listen well.

Second, it avoids unnecessary distractions, for example you can't pull out your phone and watch something while sitting in the first bench.

Plus, you also get an opportunity to earn extra brownie points from your teachers.

c. Take active part in class discussions

One clever way to reduce your effort of self study is to actively participate in class discussions.

This doesn't mean that you only speak in the discussion and hog spaces of others.

The optimal thing is to let other students speak, absorb their content and then put your point of view.

I tell you that the more discussions that happen on a topic in the class, the better you will understand the topic.

And at home when you will pick it up to study, you will take much less time to absorb it.

3. Come up with a study schedule

a. Make a study plan from Day 1

Consistency is the key my friend. You can't just start to study 3 weeks before the exams and think of topping the class.

You need to start from the first week of the semester or the quarterly term and come up with a study schedule.

Let the study schedule be not a hard one initially as if you are in class 7 or 8 then dedicating 3 hours to studies including homework is fine.

If you're in class 10 or above then your study schedule should span across 5 hours every day (homework included).

No matter what happens you stick to the schedule because if you stay consistent then you will not feel any pressure during exam days and also, the chances of you securing the first rank in the class will greatly increase.

b. Set goals

Setting up goals and milestones in your study plan is utterly necessary.

While your main goal is ‘To be a topper of the class’, but there is a need to set several short and medium term goals in your journey to become a topper.

For example - you can set a short term goal of completing a topic by a certain date or a medium term goal of completing first 5 lessons of Science in medium term like 45 days or so.

Achieving goals and marking them complete will give you confidence and a self check about where you're on the trajectory of ending the syllabus.

No matter what happens, try hard to achieve your short term and medium term goals.

4. Adapt effective study techniques

a. Understand then memorize

The duration of every exam is 3 hours, so if you don't have answers on top of your mind then you might not be able to even attempt a few questions.

But memorizing without understanding the study text is poison.

You should first thoroughly understand the answer to every question that is there at the end of the lesson and then try to memorize it.

Doing so will help you write the answers to exam questions quickly and you will be able to attempt all the questions in the question paper.

Remember, to secure the highest marks in the class it is necessary that you write answers to all the questions being asked.

b. Be creative in study methods

Well, it is very hard to memorize for some students even if they understand a topic completely.

In that case, you can use other study methods such as flash cards, mindmaps etc to help yourself.

Be creative in studying a topic, find out what suits you and then start using it fully.

Also be flexible with your study methods too, if you don't a study method working for you, change it and try the next one.

c. Toppers have one common friend - Revision

Try picking up a topic that you have studied today directly after 3 months, you will barely remember anything and you will feel it is as good as studying it for the first time.

The effort to study the same topic after 3 months will be more because this time there will be frustration of not remembering the same topic because you already studied it.

Therefore, it is very necessary that your mind retains the information but mind can't do it unless you do frequent revisions of the studied topics.

For every topic you study today, revise it once 2 days later, then revise the same 1 week later and then do a revision of the same topic 1 month later.

This is just an example but in your study schedule there must be a respected place for frequent Revision otherwise, it will become very difficult at the end of your term when exams are round the corner.

d. Write, write, write

I have already mentioned revision as a tool to the success in exams. It helps you retain what you studied. You can make revision more effective and efficient by writing things down. Yes, there is no doubt that it requires additional effort but it increases your retention power exponentially.

Once you practice writing down what you read and learnt, the next time when you open the same chapter for revision it will be really a cake walk.

5. All toppers are organized and manage their time well

a. Make time your friend else it will become your enemy

In a student's life, time is important.

You need to attend school, then you take your tuition, then you have to do self study, then homework and what not.

If you don't assign time slots to self study, and homework and follow them rigidly then get ready to say goodbye to consistency.

Thus proper time management is also a determining factor of success in class.

Train yourself everyday to not waste a single minute, do a thing at its assigned time as per the study schedule and you will soon find that you are left with a lot of time to watch TV.

b. Say ‘No’ to distraction

A good way to stay organized is to keep your smartphone out of your room when you're studying.

For a student, continuous sitting is important which means that you should at least sit and focus on the lesson for 1.5 hours and then take a break of 10 mins.

But within these 1.5 hours you should not distract yourself in any way.

When the phone is near, you feel the temptation to pick it up and check messages or social media, say ‘No’ to it.

Toppers of the class don't fuel any distraction and master focus.

c. Study topics in descending order of their importance

Like I told you before, you should create a list for every subject in which you write topics in the descending order of the marks they carry.

If you follow the order then you will master the tough and important topics first.

Also, it becomes important to design this list keeping in mind the dates of unit tests, or mid semester exams.

So, if a couple of topics are set to appear in the next unit test but don't carry more marks from the perspective of main exam, still do them first because scoring well in surprise tests or unit tests is good for confidence.

Also, if unit test results contribute to your final exam performance then you can't take these tests for granted at all.

d. Keep your notebooks up-to-date

Keeping notebooks up-to-date for every subject and getting them checked by your teacher is a good way to stay organized.

Moreover, notes are a good shortcut to study a lesson well.

They always present you with relevant information of a topic.

I highly recommend that in the start you study the whole chapter from the book but before exams you focus more on studying from notebooks or study notes.

6. Do effective self-evaluation of your performance

Studying the entire syllabus properly is one big chunk of scoring high in exams but there is one more aspect which if not mastered, can let you not get past the finish line on time.

Doing well in exams depends on many factors such as your writing speed, the knowledge of time it will take to write answers to questions on a particular topic, your ability to write answers to all the questions within 3 hours, your mood on the exam day.

Therefore, it becomes necessary to practice writing exams many times before the actual exam day and impose a kind of discipline on yourself.

Thus, I highly recommend that you solve previous year question papers.

Pick up a question paper of a recent year, sit at your desk and write answers to questions imagining that you're sitting in an examination hall.

If questions papers are not available for your class then make one for yourself by writing important questions in black ink on an A4 size paper.

When you solve it for the first time, you yourself find many areas of improvement. Repeatedly working on these areas will greatly increase your chances of success in the exam.

Toppers of the class do it all the time.

7. Seek help, don't hesitate

Don't worry you are not alone in this journey of becoming a topper of the class.

Whenever you feel that you're finding a topic difficult to understand, go to your teacher, take help.

No teacher will refuse to help you.

Then also if you think you need private tuitions don't hesitate in going to a teacher for tuitions as the more teachers explain you a particular topic, the better you will grasp it.

Also, you can reach out to your parents for help in both studies and when you need some motivation.

I personally made my mother sit by my study table when I felt alone or discouraged while studying a tough topic, to me having my mother by my side helped.

Feel free to find out ways in which you feel motivated to study and never be shy of following them because you are trying to crack the answer of a big question ‘How to become a class topper’.

Conclusion - How to Top in class

Becoming a topper is not everyone's cup of tea. Why?

Because there is only deserving student who can be a topper not the whole class.

A deserving student is the one who is disciplined, motivated,attentive, hardworking, physically and mentally fit and keeps stress at bay.

And above all, who studies hard as per a study schedule.

If you have managed to read this article till here then I get that you have a strong urge to top your class and you can become one.

Just bookmark this article to go through this blog several times and more importantly, get to work.

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