I'll preface this by saying everyone learns differently and what I'm describing below might not be the best way for you to learn material. It is a way to get good grades, whether you absorb the material depends on your learning style.

First - read the syllabus. This tells you where the material you will be tested on and how your grade is calculated. It's important - does participation count? Are quizzes and homework important or does the grade mostly come from exams and/or a project?

Obviously take notes as you go through the classes and material.

Then this is a big one - for EVERY homework assignment, quiz, and exam you get, GO BACK through the material and find where the questions came from.

By doing this you will get a "feel" for how your teacher designs the questions - what they think is important and how they pick what to ask.

Learning how the teacher creates questions is one of the biggest things you can do - by the end of the year you'll have a great shot with the final exam.

Then beyond that - before any quiz or exam go back and distill your notes into study sheets. Do NOT include everything important, just the things you don't already know. As you study, distill down more and cross things off so that when you're crunching, you're only bothering with things you don't know.

If you follow those steps, you'll be able to get the grades.