Always try your best on assignments. If you get stuck on something, don't be afraid to ask for some help.  Parents or older siblings can help you most of the time. If not, make sure you have phone numbers of classmates who are good students and who will help you. If you get a chance to do extra credit, do it. Extra credit can help raise your grade or if you do poorly on a test, you have a little cushion. But not every teacher offers extra credit, so it is always a good idea to do every assignment and do you best on it. You will learn the material better for a test and you will get a higher grade if you spend the time to do it right.

Homework assignments always prepare you to take a test. By writing information down you are reinforcing what you might have heard in class or read in the book. For instance, in math solving different problems helps you better understand the application better. In most subjects there are stepping stones, so if you don't understand the easy part, you will be really lost further in the book. Some students think if you can get the right answer on the assignment, it doesn't matter if you don't understand. It is really important that you understand what you are doing.

If you don't understand something in class, don't be afraid to ask questions. Even if the rest of the class seems to understand, you should not be intimidated by the rest of the class. Sometimes it will help to stay after school and ask the teacher to explain again when it is just the two of you. Not all teachers will stay after school to work with a student, so ask your parents to see if they will pay for a tutor to help you.  When you have trouble understanding, try to do more than the assigned homework to give you more practice.