Can you go from being a dumb kid to being a full mark kid?

So recently I've been thinking about whether intelligence is something you're either born with, or if its learnt through your experiences. So was wondering, is it possible for someone to be a dumb or even average kid in school to becoming an exceptional student achieving exceptional grades across all subjects (90%+). Some one has told me they have they were like this. And also, do you think being academically smart makes you an actually smart person? Things like common sense don't actually have much to do with academics which is mostly about how much you memorize and revise things right? Sorry if this has been discussed before but what are all your takes on this? Personally I achieved quite good GCSE results but still consider myself really dumb tbh

Well I got pretty good GCSEs and A Levels and people assume I'm clever because I'm Asian but I'm literally so dumb I forget things seconds after someone tells me them and I don't know much about the world, like I feel really stupid talking to other people

Well I could barely write my name in P.3 and my parents were told I'd never achieve much at all, now I'm doing A2s and I get C/Bs without trying really. People can have "intelligence spurts" suddenly and they're really fantastic. I'd also consider myself, common sense wise, pretty smart minded


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What's P.3 sorry? And good on you for your achievements

Primary 3, don't you have that stuff in England? 😂 guess I'm not as smart minded as I thought 😂

It goes Nursery then primary 1-7 then secondary school (That's the Northern Ireland way)


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Haha no we don't. I don't think that makes you not smart minded, I mean Northern Ireland is part of the UK so I see why you thought it'd be the same?

Being academically smart doesn't mean you're smart. This belief has come from the fact that smart people do well in the academic field when interested (Newton, Einstein, tesla etc.)

You can achieve As across all your academics from simply working hard. If you aren't naturally smart, you should accept that and try to work out how you could still get As in your exams. Take for example the naturally smart individual with incredible memory and understanding of new material. They devote a month to studying for a subject and get an A*. But if you are not this individual, you must accept that and realise you will need more time to prep for an exam. There's no shame in such a thing. People are born different.

My point is, as long as you have the right attitude and are willing to put in the boring hours studying you can achieve As.

Being academically smart doesn't mean you're smart. This belief has come from the fact that smart people do well in the academic field when interested (Newton, Einstein, tesla etc.)

You can achieve As across all your academics from simply working hard. If you aren't naturally smart, you should accept that and try to work out how you could still get As in your exams. Take for example the naturally smart individual with incredible memory and understanding of new material. They devote a month to studying for a subject and get an A*. But if you are not this individual, you must accept that and realise you will need more time to prep for an exam. There's no shame in such a thing. People are born different.

My point is, as long as you have the right attitude and are willing to put in the boring hours studying you can achieve As.

I have excellent academics but zero common sense. I have done well in standardised tests and am generally not bad at puzzles that supposedly require intelligence. I can "banter" in the right company/pick up on jokes pretty well but my social intelligence with those I don't know well is terrible and I am generally awful at doing practical things and remembering stuff (both general knowledge and short term I can have trouble with, though it depends on specifics). I guess what I'm getting at is that if you met me in person you would think I was pretty dull. You'd have to know my academic history or know me personally for a while for me to seem at all smart. Intelligence is quite a varied, subjective and multi-faceted thing; you probably aren't really a "dumb kid" if you do really well in school - at least you clearly can't be dumb in all areas. But if you flop with all Us that doesn't make you dumb either.

Out of curiosity, what way do you all have it over there

And I should have known it would be different tbh :/ , we're under a sorta different government than yours


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Spot on. I actually flopped AS maths because I didn't study . In the following January I got 100% in my C1 retake only because I was so well prepared. If it was a true measure of intelligence I couldn't have gone from stupid to brilliant in 6 months. It's just practice, when it comes to grades. Now when you come to degree level/masters you actually have the be clever. They assess you in different ways.

Yeah I totally get that. I got an A in C2 and B in C1 but yet can't do simple mental maths calculations in my head without it taking quite some time. It's really weird.

I think because of that reason the C1 exam itself is harder than C2. You have to concentrate a lot more in C1 just because of the fact you don't have a calculator.

Totally agree! But then some people are always like C1 is piss easy, it's GCSE maths but I don't actually find it THAT easy!

The content is piss easy. But the exam itself is harder than C2. If you know both topics extremely well, then I found C1 harder from my experience.