My grades suck and everything is falling apart

Hmm...

Sounds like a bit of a pickle that requires some assistance. I do, however, believe that you have come to the wrong place for such assistance. This is a forum for students studying in the UK, not from anywhere across the pond. I wish I could help, but I'm not familiar with anything regarding the education system in the US. Maybe you should go on Reddit? For example, this thread provides some brilliant advice for American students such as yourself.

I literally hate everything because my grades are pretty bad. I have only 2 A's and I don't think I can get my 4 B's up. I don't know what to do, and I'm honestly freaking out because I don't have anything special about me either. Like with speech and debate, my teacher tells me I can't go to tournaments until I fix my speech, I work on it for many hours and comeback just for him to say... "nahhh it's not good enough". I suck at everything and I just want to be good at something. Why can't I be like the kids who have all A's and weighted classes and winning state in speech and debate? Pls help what can I do to get my grades and speeches better. Also, I live in the us so idk what forum to put this in

Hey, you're doing really well! Try not to stress to much; don't loose sight of who and why you're dedicated to working really hard. A lot of people say that they don't have anything special about them, but trust me we all do - you probably just haven't found it yet. Trust me. I can help with grades but not speeches because I am terrible at them. In terms of your grades you need to know what subjects takes the longest to understand and what subjects are the one's your gifted in. Although I say this, I don't mean that you should just forget about the subjects you've got 2 As in because you might just slack off on those and lower those amazing grades. Instead, you may want to start doing work for the subjects you find hard first and only after you could do the subjects you're doing well in so you have something to look forward to revising.

I've been reading a book called "Make it stick - The Science of Successful Learning" by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel and they stress the importance of understanding the subject and how to apply it. This is done through retrieval practice (e.g. after reading a paragraph/chapter of a textbook, try and recall what it's talking about. Any bits you couldn't recall, focus on those parts of the topic and try to understand them. Retrieval practice can also be doing things like flashcards too), spaced repetition (after learning something, learn another topic and come back to the previous one and do practice questions. Spaced repetition could also include doing flashcards every once in a while) and practice questions. I don't know if what I said made sense but I really recommend the book (I still haven't finished it yet).

With this being said, you also want to know when it's time to take a break. It sounds like you're working way too hard and working at this level throughout the whole year is not sustainable. You want to work, but not too hard... Well it all depends on when your finals are. I'd say 3 months before, or maybe more, is when you want to start working like crazy.

I'm sorry this is so long and dragged just a little bit. I hope everything goes well and I hoped this helped!

I literally hate everything because my grades are pretty bad. I have only 2 A's and I don't think I can get my 4 B's up. I don't know what to do, and I'm honestly freaking out because I don't have anything special about me either. Like with speech and debate, my teacher tells me I can't go to tournaments until I fix my speech, I work on it for many hours and comeback just for him to say... "nahhh it's not good enough". I suck at everything and I just want to be good at something. Why can't I be like the kids who have all A's and weighted classes and winning state in speech and debate? Pls help what can I do to get my grades and speeches better. Also, I live in the us so idk what forum to put this in

Thank you so much your advice means the world to me and I hope you know that you were able to make a difference in my life. I did end with 4 B's and 2 A's, but I came back even stronger this semester and achieved straight A's! You're right, I was somewhat slacking off and only started working extremely hard towards the end of the semester. I appreciate it!!