How to achieve high marks in academic study

"How to achieve high marks in academic study?" This is the question from students that I have  got from time to time as a teacher. Sometimes, the question is more specific: "How to achieve a merit grade for my dissertation report given that I have one more week to write up my dissertation report and it is only 40% done at this stage?" Students expect me to give them some feedbacks so that they can respond in a day or two via some enhancements of their assignments or dissertation reports, and as a result, they are able to achieve their targeted performance, such as obtaining a merit grade. Things are not that straightforward in practice, though I can explain my understanding on this topic. A student's academic performance is affected by four types of factors:

(a). Direct factors (an operational concern): teachers' and classmates' support in specific course works/ examination preparation.
(b). Micro-environmental factors (a tactical concern): mental stress arising from study and other activities (e.g. investment in Stock Market), sufficiency of rest, study room environment/ library support.
(c). Macro-environmental factors (a strategic concern): your life-goal, which affects your mindset on study, your social network quality, specific stage in life (age range from 20-35; 36-50; 51-65); mental/ physical/financial health; access to library facility/ internet; finally, intellectual ability and writing skill.
(d). The e-factors: these could be bad things like death of relatives or good things such as winning mark six.

I call factors (b) and (c) environmental factors because they are outside my control as a teacher on this topic; they are not totally outside students' control.  These environmental factors act as significant constraints on academic performance of students in the short run.

As a teacher, I could provide support to you, which can be considered as a direct factor (a). I could give you some advice on  how to manage the micro-environmental factors (b). If you are willing, I could give you some advice also on how to deal the macro-environnmenal factors (c), probably as a mentor. Maybe, as a friend or mentor, I could also give you some advice on how to cope with the e-factors (d). The key point is: achieving good performance in academic study does not solely depend on the direct factors (a). Thus, just do not expect that, just by responding to my brief feedbacks via email or phone chats, you, as my students, are able to substantially improve your academic performance by spending several hours or a few days more in your study.  The environmental factors (b) and (c) take much longer time to address, and these environmental factors are more personal in nature; study room and library are provided by educational institutions and the government; their availability is outside the control of teachers. If you want to achieve high marks in study (and in fruitful professional development), you'd better work on factors (b) and (c) on a persistent and sincere basis.

Sometimes, I am a bit more generous in my assessment of students' works but I will not elaborate on it in this article.