Under pressure to earn the high grades and test scores necessary for a coveted spot at a prestigious university, high school students are anxious and exhausted. They’re also missing out on academic experiences that encourage a desire to learn and pursue their passions—the real routes to success, according to Deborah Stipek, dean of the Stanford University School of Education.

A brief writing exercise can help women in college physics classes improve their academic performance and reduce some of the well-documented differences between male and female science students, researchers say in a new study. The writing exercise seems particularly beneficial to female students who tend to subscribe to the negative stereotype that men perform better in physics, the researchers say