student asking question

What does "hit the books" mean?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

This is an informal expression meaning to "study or read seriously, in a determined way." For example, you can use this to describe students who are in the midst of an exam period. Ex: It's exam week, so I saw students hitting the books all over the library. Ex: He was a bad student up until his senior year of high school. Then, he got serious and started hitting the books.

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