How to Improve Lower Grades: 8 Causes and Fixes

If your grades are dropping, don’t immediately assume you need to study harder.

First, find out what’s actually going wrong.

This step is important because low grades can be the result of several different problems.

For example, your course might have become more difficult. You may not have enough time to do your best work. Perhaps your study methods create the feeling of familiarity with the material, but do not giving you reliable recall.

Sometimes the problem is even simpler: You haven’t figured out exactly what your teacher or professor expects from you.

I’ve experienced several of these problems myself.

In fact, one of my last failed grades in high school frustrated me so badly that I tore up the report card. Not long afterward, I dropped out.

Eventually, I returned to school, completed two master’s degrees and earned my PhD. I’ve also taught at both the high school and university levels.

These experiences taught me something important:

A bad grade is an outcome. Before you can improve it, you need to diagnose what produced it.

That’s exactly what we’re going to do on this page.

You’ll learn why your grades may be dropping, how to identify the part of your learning process that’s failing and what to change so your next assessment gives you much better information about your progress.

Why Your Grades Are Dropping: 8 Causes to Check First

Before changing your study routine, spend some time thinking reflectively about your recent results.

Don’t just ask:

“Why did I get a bad grade?”

Ask a better question:

“Where, specifically, did I lose the grade?”

That distinction matters.

For example, failing to remember information requires a different solution from misunderstanding an assignment. Running out of time during an exam requires another solution entirely.

Let’s diagnose the most common possibilities.

1. You’ve Started a Harder Grade, Course or Program

I remember my first classes at university.

They felt incredibly alienating.

Suddenly, the books were much more difficult than anything I’d encountered in high school. My professors were speaking English, but sometimes it sounded like an entirely new language.

Sociology and psychology introduced me to streams of unfamiliar terminology. During those first few days, I seriously doubted whether I could succeed.

Back then, I hadn’t yet learned how to memorize vocabulary quickly, so every unfamiliar term added friction.

Later, as both a student and professor, I saw other learners experience the same problem.

The important point is that your old study habits may have been perfectly adequate for your previous level.

Now they’re not.

That doesn’t necessarily mean your ability has declined. Instead, the demands placed on that ability have increased.

When this happens, identify exactly what has changed. Ask questions like:

• Are you responsible for reading harder books?
• Do your exams require more application instead of simple recall?
• Are assignments longer?
• Do teachers expect more independent research?

Once you’ve isolated the new demand, you can start developing the specific skill needed to meet it.

2. Your Expectations Don’t Match the Workload

Another problem arises when the amount of work required doesn’t match the time you’ve allocated to it.

I’ve run into this myself many times.

For example, when I passed Level III Mandarin as an adult learner, I had to be realistic.

My age mattered.

My existing workload mattered.

Even the fact that the class took place in the evening mattered.

Instead of pretending those constraints didn’t exist, I adjusted my expectations and study process around them. Combined with the memory techniques I’d developed through years of language learning, that planning helped me pass.

The same principle applies to almost any subject.

If an assignment genuinely requires ten hours and you’ve given yourself three, no clever study hack can manufacture the missing seven.

Start by estimating your workload realistically.

Then adjust either your schedule, your expectations or both.

3. Your Notes Create Familiarity Instead of Learning

Students are rarely taught enough note-taking techniques.

As a result, it’s easy to confuse producing notes with learning.

Those are not the same thing.

Copying sentences, highlighting entire pages and rereading information can make the material look familiar. Unfortunately, recognition can fool you into thinking you’ll be able to reproduce the information later.

Your grades reveal whether that familiarity survives when the book is closed.

Try a simple test:

• Put your notes away and write down the main ideas from memory.
• Can you explain them?
• Can you provide examples?
• Could you answer a question that asks you to apply the concept instead of merely defining it?

If not, your problem may not be the amount of studying you’re doing. The problem may be what you’re doing during those hours.

4. You Understand the Material But Can’t Retrieve It

This problem is especially important on exams.

You might genuinely understand a topic while reading about it. Yet when the question appears, the information refuses to come back.

That’s a retrieval problem.

I’ve spent decades experimenting with ways to solve it, both during my own academic work and while teaching others.

The central principle is simple:

Information needs to come out of memory during practice, not just go into memory during study.

Cornell University’s Learning Strategies Center makes a similar distinction in its guide to effective study strategies, which emphasizes retrieval practice rather than relying only on rereading.

We’ll look at how I approach retrieval with memory techniques in a moment.

5. You’ve Taken on More Than Your Schedule Can Handle

During my second year of university, I was struggling financially.

I wound up working three jobs at the same time.

One was at a photo lab. Remember those?

I also worked at a library and cleaned a movie theater as a janitor.

With that workload, I only had time for one course at the University of Northern British Columbia that year.

My progress through the B.A. slowed down dramatically.

Worse, some assignments didn’t represent the quality of work I was capable of producing. I simply didn’t have enough time.

That experience taught me a lesson I wish I had learned earlier:

Sometimes poor academic performance isn’t a study-skills problem. It’s a scheduling problem.

Years later, I deliberately designed my lifestyle so I could give the lion’s share of my focus to my studies when necessary.

If you’re overcommitted, inspect your calendar before buying another productivity app or trying another study technique.

You may discover that the solution is subtraction.

6. You’re Studying the Wrong Information

Students sometimes work very hard and still get disappointing grades because they’re learning material that isn’t central to the assessment.

I’ve seen this mistake from both sides of the classroom.

The learner remembers dozens of details but misses the argument, principle or process the question actually tests.

Before you start memorizing, identify the main points.

Look closely at:

• Your syllabus
• Learning objectives
• Assignment instructions
• Rubrics
• Practice questions
• Topics your instructor repeatedly emphasizes
• Feedback from previous assessments

Then ask yourself what you’re expected to do with the information. This process includes asking questions like:

• Do you need to define it?
• Compare it?
• Apply it?
• Analyze it?
• Argue for or against it?

Memorization becomes much more useful once you’ve identified what deserves to be remembered in the first place.

7. You’re Not Using Feedback to Change Your Next Attempt

A grade by itself tells you very little.

The useful information is in why you received it.

Suppose you lost marks because your answer lacked evidence.

Studying the topic for another ten hours won’t necessarily solve that problem. You need to improve how you use evidence.

Likewise, if you knew the content but failed to answer the precise question, spending more time memorizing content attacks the wrong bottleneck.

Use each returned assessment as diagnostic material.

Look for patterns across multiple assignments rather than obsessing over one disappointing result.

Then create specific learning goals based on what the feedback reveals.

8. You May Need Clarification About the Grade Itself

Finally, sometimes a grade deserves another look.

I’ve had assessments I believed did not accurately reflect my performance. I’ve also experienced challenging academic situations, including a difficult dissertation defense.

From those experiences, I’ve learned not to approach disagreements emotionally.

Start with the rubric or marking criteria.

Next, identify the exact point where you believe your work met a requirement that the assessment says you missed.

Then ask your teacher or professor to explain the result.

Maybe you’ll discover something you misunderstood.

Perhaps they’ll discover something they overlooked.

Either way, deal with the specific evidence rather than making the conversation about whether a teacher “likes” you.

My rule in tense academic situations is simple:

ABC: Always Be Cool.

How to Find the Real Reason Your Grades Are Falling

At this point, resist the urge to change everything at once.

Instead, perform what I think of as an academic autopsy.

Take your last three graded assignments or exams and examine where the marks disappeared.

For each one, ask:

• Knowledge: Did I know enough about the topic?
• Understanding: Could I explain and apply what I knew?
• Memory: Did I know it while studying but fail to recall it later?
• Selection: Did I focus on the information that actually mattered?
• Execution: Did I misunderstand the question, run out of time or organize the answer poorly?
• Workload: Did I have enough time to prepare properly?
• Feedback: Have previous comments identified the same weakness?

You’re looking for repetition.

One bad result can happen for all kinds of reasons.

Three assessments showing the same weakness give you something much more useful:

A pattern.

Once you’ve found that pattern, concentrate your effort there.

How to Improve Your Grades Without Just Studying Longer

More study time can help.

However, better-directed study is usually the first thing I would change.

Start With the Weakest Part of Your Process

If your diagnostic review shows that your schedule is the problem, fix your schedule.

When unclear instructions are costing you marks, ask better questions before completing the next assignment.

If you’re repeatedly failing to identify what’s important, work on extracting key ideas.

And when your study habits themselves need an overhaul, use my complete guide on how to study effectively rather than trying to cram another dozen techniques into this page.

The goal is precision.

Don’t repair the roof when the leak is coming from the plumbing.

Test Yourself Before the Real Assessment Does

Waiting for an exam to discover that you don’t know something is expensive.

Find out earlier.

Close your book.

Put your notes away.

Then reproduce what you’ve learned.

You can write out what you remember, answer practice questions, explain the material aloud or solve a problem without looking at the solution.

Whatever method you choose, make the practice resemble the kind of retrieval the real assessment requires.

That way, failure during practice becomes useful information rather than a nasty surprise on exam day.

Make One Meaningful Change at a Time

Students sometimes react to bad grades by completely rebuilding their lives overnight.

New timetable.

New flashcard app.

New note-taking system.

New morning routine.

Five new productivity techniques.

Then everything collapses because nobody can tell which change helped.

Instead, isolate your most important bottleneck and improve it first.

After you’ve tested that change, move to the next one.

This approach turns your education into an ongoing learning experiment rather than a cycle of panic and reinvention.

If Memory Is the Problem, Train Retrieval

Now we arrive at the part of this topic I’ve spent the most time studying and teaching.

Memory.

If your grades are dropping because information keeps disappearing when you need it, then improving your memory for studying can make an enormous difference.

However, don’t mistake this for a recommendation to memorize everything.

The opposite is true.

First identify what matters.

Then remember it deliberately.

Use Memory Techniques to Encode Important Information

I’ve used many different memory techniques throughout my academic life.

The one I rely on most is the Memory Palace.

Basically, you mentally organize information along familiar locations. You then associate important facts, concepts, vocabulary or sequences with specific places.

For example, when I wanted to memorize blood flow through the heart, I used Lake Superior as a Memory Palace and created associations involving Superman and ice.

The imagery might sound strange.

That’s part of why it works so well for me.

The important part isn’t creating entertaining pictures for their own sake.

It’s using associations to establish cues you can deliberately revisit.

Practice Pulling Information Back Out

Once information has been encoded, retrieval matters.

My preferred approach combines mnemonic techniques with active recall.

Instead of continually putting information back into your head by rereading, you practice bringing it out.

Ask yourself the question.

Recall the answer.

Check whether you’re correct.

Then repair whatever you missed.

The U.S. Institute of Education Sciences has also published a practice guide on organizing study for learning that recommends techniques including spacing learning over time and using quizzing to promote learning.

That brings us to another important principle.

Space Your Review Instead of Cramming It

A single successful recall does not mean you’re finished.

Come back to the information later.

Then retrieve it again.

This is the basic logic behind spaced repetition.

For me, the important point is that spaced repetition shouldn’t become mindless repetition.

Each review gives you information, provided that you analyze your study outcomes. Ask questions like:

• What are you remembering easily?
• Where are you hesitating?
• Which ideas are getting confused?

Use your answers to adjust what strategies you use next.

This is the kind of process that makes review a valuable feedback system that you can use time and again.

What to Do After You Receive a Bad Grade

Suppose the disappointing grade has already arrived.

What should you do today?

First, don’t waste the information it contains.

Go through the assessment while the experience is still fresh.

Identify exactly where you lost marks and classify each loss.

Was it:

• A knowledge problem?
• A memory problem?
• A misunderstanding?
• A weak argument?
• A time-management problem?
• An avoidable mistake?
• A failure to follow instructions?

Next, ask your instructor about anything you don’t understand in the feedback.

After that, choose the single weakness most likely to improve your next result.

Finally, build practice around that weakness before your next assessment.

This process might not feel as exciting as discovering a shiny new study hack.

Good.

You’re not looking for excitement.

You’re looking for better feedback from reality.

What Going From High-School Dropout to PhD Taught Me About Grades

I still remember tearing up that failed report card.

At the time, the grade felt like a verdict.

It wasn’t.

Eventually, I returned to school. Years later, I earned my PhD and found myself standing on the other side of the classroom as a teacher.

The journey taught me not to worship grades.

But I don’t ignore them either.

A grade is information.

Sometimes it tells you that you haven’t learned enough yet.

At other times, it reveals a weakness in your process.

Occasionally, it tells you that you misunderstood what was expected.

Whatever the cause, the useful response is the same:

Diagnose before you prescribe.

Find the bottleneck.

Fix the bottleneck.

Then test yourself again.

That’s also why I don’t recommend collecting dozens of disconnected study tricks. Develop a coherent set of skills that helps you identify important information, remember it and retrieve it when needed.

If you’d like my help building those skills, get my FREE Memory Improvement Course:

The exercises will help you build a practical memory system you can use throughout your studies.

From there, continue refining how you read, remember and retrieve information so that each course becomes part of an optimized learning cycle.

Will every grade be perfect?

Probably not.

Nor does it need to be.

What matters is that when your grades drop, you know how to find out why.

Then you can do something useful about it.