Reminds me of my favorite dumb observation from grad school: the textbook is your friend. I was doing ok in Abstract Algebra, but really wanted to bump up from

Reminds me of my favorite dumb observation from grad school: the textbook is your friend. I was doing ok in Abstract Algebra, but really wanted to bump up from a B to an A. So I spent the last few weeks slowly reading every chapter and doing almost every exercise. By the end of the semester I felt much more comfortable and got the top score on the final. Only took me 20 years to figure it out, but reading the textbook and doing the exercises are effective ways to learn (duh).