How to Get Good Grades in High School Without Studying All Night

Getting good grades in high school isn’t about being “smart” or studying until 2 a.m. Most of it comes down to a few habits, and two study methods that work much better than the ones most people use.

Here’s what actually moves your grades, and what you can stop doing.

The two study methods that actually work

In 2013, a team of psychologists looked at the research on ten common study techniques. Their review, published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, gave the highest rating to just two of them, according to the Association for Psychological Science:

1. Practice testing

Quizzing yourself instead of reading your notes again. It feels harder, and that’s the point: pulling information out of your head is what makes it stick. Ways to do it:

• Flashcards (paper or an app), and keep going until you get each one right without looking.
• Cover your notes and write down everything you remember, then check what you missed.
• Do the practice problems at the end of the chapter before the test, not after.
• Explain the topic out loud to a friend, a sibling or your dog.

2. Spacing it out

Studying in short sessions over several days instead of one long cram. Twenty minutes a day for four days beats 80 minutes the night before. Every time you come back to it, you forget a little and relearn it, and that’s what moves it into long-term memory.

What doesn’t work as well as you think

The same review rated rereading, highlighting and summarizing as low-utility. They’re the most popular methods, which is the problem. They feel productive because the material looks familiar, but recognizing something isn’t the same as remembering it on a test. For a day-by-day plan before a big one, see how to study for a test.

You don’t have to quit highlighting. Just don’t let it be the whole plan. Highlight while you read, then turn the highlights into questions and quiz yourself.

Habits that move your grade without extra studying

• Turn everything in. A zero on a missing assignment drags your average down way more than a C does. A late or messy assignment is almost always better than nothing.
• Write every due date in one place. A planner, a notes app or your phone calendar. Not in your head.
• Sit where you can focus. Away from the friend you’ll talk to all period.
• Do homework at the same time every day. Right after school or right after dinner. A routine means you don’t have to decide every night.
• Put your phone in another room. Not face down on the desk. Another room. Our guide on how to stop doomscrolling has more on this.
• Read the rubric. It’s literally the list of what the teacher is grading. Check it before you start and before you turn it in.

Sleep is a study tool

The CDC says teens need 8 to 10 hours of sleep a night, and in 2025 only about 1 in 4 high schoolers got at least 8 on school nights. The CDC lists trouble concentrating as one of the effects of too little sleep.

That’s why “studying all night” before a test usually backfires. If you have to choose between one more hour of cramming and one more hour of sleep, sleep usually wins. That’s also why spacing it out matters: you don’t need the all-nighter if you started on Monday.

Talk to your teachers

Teachers are the most underused resource in school. If you’re lost, ask during office hours, before or after school, or by email. Ask what you can do to bring a grade up, or what you got wrong on a test. Not sure how to write that email? Here’s how to email a teacher, with templates. Already got a bad grade back? Here’s how to tell your parents about a bad grade.

Asking early, while there’s still time to fix things, works much better than asking the week before report cards.

Questions people ask