* Don't bother **Borrow it *** Pa perback ****Hardback *****Exceptional

Cal Newport's How to Become A Straight-A Student advertises itself as the fast-track into "the unconventional strategies real college students use to score high while studying less." The main lesson I learned from this book, however, is that a student's time would be better spent at the UW's CLUE or in University study centers than trying to glean half-hearted tips from this book.

Newport is also the author of How to Win at College. He graduated from Dartmouth and is currently earning his Ph.D. at MIT. What makes him qualified to write his most recent book, according to its back cover, is the fact that "using the strategies outlined in this book, he earned 36 straight-As in a row."

Be that as it may, Newport's book comes off as trivial and unhelpful as the majority of the self-help books on the market today. A student is always going to be better off studying than spending time reading about how to best spend time studying.

How to Become a Straight-A Student is organized into three sections. The first focuses on the age-old advice to "study smarter, not harder." Newport spends much time here discussing efficiency as opposed to just studying by rote force and memorization. Among the tired tips Newport falls back on is advice to start using a calendar and procrastinate less — nothing we haven't heard before.

The next section is devoted to scoring higher on quizzes and exams, which is perhaps the most helpful section in the book, especially for students who never learned test-taking skills in high school. Here, Newport teaches his readers to "take smart notes," commit material to long-term memory and study in groups.

Finally, Newport spends time discussing the art of writing essays and term papers. He discusses at length using methods of prewriting, which I can at least say I found more helpful than what I learned in tenth grade before taking the WASL.

One of his main points is "The sooner you dispel the notion that writing is the most important part of paper writing, the easier it will become for you to reap the benefits of the straight-A approach."

Time is also spent advising readers on how to formulate a thesis and getting advice from peers and professors.

Newport's book does feature a number of reader-friendly devices that make it easy to fly through How to Become a Straight-A Student. For example, he bolds sentences throughout the book, making highlighting unnecessary. Bulleted lists abound, as do quotes from straight-A students at the nation's most elite colleges.

Overall, this book achieves Newport's goal of being a step-by-step guide to becoming a smarter studier. Its main problem is that nothing is new, but rather is all advice students have heard many times over.

If anyone reads this book, it should certainly be college freshmen — to veteran college students, it will prove a waste of time. Better yet, it's a great way to waste time, so if you need a procrastination aid, this is it. g