How to Get the Grade Without Doing the Work: A Complete Guide on How to Make Excellent Grades in College While Not Doing the Work

By Charles Lanham

The one problem all students run into while they prepare for a test is not what you might think. You might naturally assume that the problem is one of memory (i.e., remembering the answers to the test), but the real problem is what I call the Situation Effect. In laymen terms, our intelligence is composed of two halves, the first being genetic, the second being environmental (e.g., diet, sleep, sociability, etc.), and these two halves come together to form our current situation. Therefore, effects on either of these halves can help make or break our grades.

The only way to improve your situation is to learn how to make your brain happy and comfortable, because when youre sad or stressed you will not function as well. In fact, some people are physically disfigured to a certain degree because they endured so much trial. In this state of mind, motor skills are frustrated and do not function like they should. Also, because of provoking anxiety, ability to fight disease is infringed. Above all, your focus, drive to succeed, and mental activity are all incredibly bankrupt. When theyre bad enough, it feels like they dont even exist. Therefore, if you keep yourself as happy as possible you will study more effectively.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 10, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450227018

Charles Lanham

Charles Lanham is living the student life. He has written this book as one student speaking to another student both of whom are fighting the same war. It includes first-hand experience in all facets of the book including how to become successful in body, mind, and outlook on life.

Book preview

Contents

Book One

Preface

Chapter One:

How to Improve Memory

Chapter Two:

Exercise

Chapter Three:

Registering for Classes

Chapter Four:

Help

Chapter Five:

Studying

Chapter Six: Place and Time

Book Two

Intro: Cheating the System

Chapter One:

Methods of the Cheating

Chapter Two:

Skipping Whole Prerequisites

Chapter Three:

How to Avoid the Book

Chapter Four:

Attention Modifying Drugs

Chapter Five:

What Makes You Happy

End Notes

People often have a fatalistic sense that IQ is fixed … The Flynn effect shows that it can be enhanced by good environment. It doesn’t have to be some fixed capacity you’re born with.

—Psychologist John Gabrieli, Stanford University

BOOK ONE

PREFACE

Many people have asked me how I got such great grades. In high school, I felt I was seen by people as the scum of the earth, or unworthy in this sense. Oddly, I was not the most awesome person in the world—actually I hated myself very much. I believed there was no point in trying to do my schoolwork because I felt incapable. However, there was something that made me turn around. Questionnaires asked, Was your work ethic purely cheating in college? No! I did not get 102 percent grades until after I figured out this way to be successful in college. Also, I myself never cheated in college at all. I collected all the observations and studies I could find and pooled them together. I hope that by finishing and publishing this non-teacher-approved book, I will be able to not only help you achieve better grades but also help improve your life as well.

NOTE that I do not encourage students to categorically use any of the underhanded methods I will discuss in this book; however, nefarious or not, you should always have the options at your disposal, even if you will not need them in the end.

CHAPTER ONE:

HOW TO IMPROVE MEMORY

WHEN I GOT THE IDEA for this book, I was having a great deal of trouble focusing in school. Eventually, I went to my doctor and said, I just can’t focus in school. Within the month, I had been put on Concerta (methylphenidate), and I had raised my grade from a 70 percent average to a 90 percent average. Thankfully, I did not abuse the drug and took just enough to get the concentration I desired, so I never had to deal with the classic zombie reaction I would have had to endure otherwise. To my disappointment, however, I rapidly started to build up a tolerance to the medication and became extremely worried. I did further research then, looking for an alternative remedy. Lo and behold, I found that there were a whole slew of things that could be done to enhance or control my focus, attention, mood, appetite, and everything else that my pills helped me with. I learned that I could change my diet to reduce my stress and anxiety levels, improving my situation. Also, I found that by regularly exercising my brain and body not only raised my IQ score but also stimulated my senses and made my personality genuinely happier.

Nutrition and Health

According to MedHelp.com, certain foods and supplements stimulate the production of dopamine in the brain. These special foods contribute to our ability to learn more effectively, improving our lives emotionally and physically.

There are several tips you can take to improve your memory and earn that difficult college degree; however, learning to your fullest starts with diet and exercise. First, establish a healthy diet into your daily routine. After you get comfortable with your lifestyle, add the exercise. If you don’t eat right, then all the work in the world will not do you any good. Each day, eat one small meal every three hours and drink about eight cups of water, which will help increase mental endurance and help preserve your memory1.

You should also eat the right way at parties so that no one feels awkward. If you ever tried to tell ever one that you were dieting at a party, you may have noticed that everyone will feel gloomy or insulted. Also, by not eating certain things some people will try everything they can to get you to eat. Not eating the same as everyone else brings the conversation down, it distracts the focus of the crowd. In the end, it could draw your friends and family to make fun of you for the rest of the night—for eating weird.

It’s been shown that protein improves mental performance2. Carbohydrates make you feel calm and relaxed. Fat helps regulate memory and mood. Therefore, in the morning, eat proteins like chicken, salmon, and eggs, as well as carbohydrates like oatmeal, whole wheat, brown rice, and grits. Additionally, include foods high antioxidants in your diet, such as coffee beans, green tea, acai berries, and cocoa.

Sleep well at night by avoiding stimulants and embrace foods high vitamin B, preferably green leafy substances like spinach or legumes. As I had said before, research has found doing this can raise your IQ by an average of fourteen points3.

Protein

According to www.thethinkingbusiness.co.uk, Neurotransmitters are made from amino acids found in protein foods. Eating foods high in protein benefits the brain by promoting the development of neurotransmitters, dopamine, and norepinepherine, which results in making you more alert and much better at complicated thinking4.

The hormone dopamine makes us feel euphoric and also controls our appetite and motor movements. We feel focused when it is high, but when it falls to a low level, we feel a distinct lack of pleasure. Our world then suddenly looks colorless. We are afflicted with an inability to love, and we have no remorse about personal behavior. Under the pressure of a certain situations, dopamine releases norepinephrine, and norepinepherine is a neurotransmitter that causes us to fight or run away. (It will direct the heart to race, and it plays a major part in vascular tone.) Therefore, the happier you are then respectively, the more efficiently you study, and the more effectively you learn. Consequently, you must use the best stimulants—proteins like chicken, eggs, lamb, and turkey.

Prominently found in chicken, phenylalanine is an essential amino acid that the body uses in the brain and blood plasma and that the body can convert into tyrosine, which in turn is used to synthesize dopamine5. (Chicken is also a good source of coenzyme CoQ10, an antioxidant as well.)

Aside from stimulating dopamine and affecting our moods, eggs are also a great source of choline, which is essential for making acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, or chemical brain messenger that is important to memory.

I also recommend eating moderate amounts of lamb and turkey. These meats are excellent sources of protein and various B vitamins. Turkey is rich in tryptophan, a precursor to the brain’s neurotransmitter serotonin. Lamb is rich in selenium, which is a potent antioxidant that works together with other nutrients to help prevent brain cell damage—but more importantly, it’s good for your thyroid6.

In addition, omega-3 fatty acids are found in seafood, especially mackerel, salmon, striped bass, rainbow trout, halibut, tuna, and sardines, and these fatty acids may have many jobs in the body, including a possible role in the production of neurotransmitters. (Resent research at Princeton University and elsewhere