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Gone are the days when you could blow off a series of homework assignments throughout the semester but pull through with a respectable grade by cramming for and acing that all-important mid-term exam. Getting good grades today is far more about keeping up with and producing quality homework—not to mention handing it in on time.

girls succeed over boys in school because they tend to be more mastery-oriented in their schoolwork habits. They are more apt to plan ahead, set academic goals, and put effort into achieving those goals. They also are more likely than boys to feel intrinsically satisfied with the whole enterprise of organizing their work, and more invested in impressing themselves and their teachers with their efforts.

boys approach schoolwork differently. They are more performance-oriented. Studying for and taking tests taps into their competitive instincts. For many boys, tests are quests that get their hearts pounding. Doing well on them is a public demonstration of excellence

When it comes to writing-heavy courses, students don’t want to take them and teachers don’t want to teach them. When it comes to writing assignments in non-writing-oriented courses, students don’t like them to run too long and neither do teachers. Writing is just too much work for both sides. For every upper-division class in the humanities, 25 pages of finished out-of-class writing is a proper minimum. But for most students, that sounds like a daunting total—and an unjust one. For teachers handling three or more classes with 25 or more students, grading all those pages conscientiously (which means giving substantive feedback) keeps them up all night three weeks every semester. For those lucky teachers on a 2-2 load with 25 students or less per course, they feel the publish-or-perish mandate and all those pages of student prose turn into a road block.

When it comes to writing-heavy courses, students don’t want to take them and teachers don’t want to teach them.

it turns out that the one thing present in every successful person is one consistent trait. It’s not a person’s education or lack of it, or their IQ, their upbringing, their financial abundance or lack, their test scores, their birth order or their gender. It’s one odd, rarely mentioned quality: Grit.

But grit is more than just an attitude. It’s about the actions we take when faced with doubt and obstacles. In 2006, Drs. Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman discovered that the correlation between self-discipline and achievement was twice as large as the correlation between IQ and achievement.

A clear goal Determination despite others’ doubts Self-confidence about figuring things out Humility about knowing it doesn’t come easy Persistence despite fear Patience to handle the small obstacles that obscure the path A code of ethics to live by Flexibility in the face of roadblocks A capacity for human connection and collaboration A recognition that accepting help does not equate to weakness A focus and appreciation of each step in the journey An appreciation of other people’s grit A loyalty that never sacrifices connections along the way An inner strength that helped propel them to their goal

Conscientiousness and Openness have the biggest influence on academic success.

people learn better when using multiple, short training episodes rather than one extended session

participants who held jobs with higher levels of complexity with data and people, such as management and teaching, had better scores on memory and thinking tests