It has been said that to have PR skills like Pete Bisonette's, you should PR 3-10 books a week and activate 1-2 a week, for 3 months. Is there a substitute for the activate part? I'm a college student with a hectic schedule (even my weekends are filled up) and the kind of materials I read are of the technical type like textbooks and journals. With such kind of materials, I find it impossible to activate or gel 1 of them a week. My goal in activating is to acquire the comprehension level of knowledge or expertise, as written in the PRWMS book. Is it acceptable to substitue an equivalent amount of material, say, activate 15 chapters from different textbooks in one week? Or does activating mean acquiring even the lowest level of comprehension (awareness)? Thanks.

So activate one of those all important college books every week. What about course material? Don't you plan to activate that? Seems to me as a student you're half ways there by default.

Alex

You mean I'm going to focus on one book only per week? If I'm going to activate one of my books in a one week period, it'll take all of my studying time. If that single book takes all of my time, I can't read the other required readings. The lectures of the profs sometimes can't be understood unless you red the book. And tests are given almost everyday in some of my subjects. So I prefer to activate my books gradually.

Treat chapters of a textbooks as a book each.

If you know how to use the PhotoReading system you'll be applying the 5 day test approach to your books, textbooks and reading material anyway. If you're spending 30 minutes a day on activation you're well on your way to activating a book per week.

If you're already activating your study material what are you worried about activating for? You're already doing it.

Alex

I'm worried about the equivalent number of chapters in a textbook to satisfy Pete's "3-10 PR 1-2 activate" advice. A chapter of a textbook isn't equal to a whole book, isn't it?

Mate 99% of the people who learn PhotoReading never finish their good intention to PhotoRead and Activate one book per week and PhotoReading 5 to 10 books a day for 3 months.

If you are using the system well and making advances in your studies, is more really necessary right now? Can the ego not wait for spontaneous activation? It happens in it's own time and for people who are more consistently using PhotoReading than those you only do it occasionaly. You can always do the push when you have more time. But right now you need to consider your priorities.

Once you've applied the 5 day test/experiement to 3 to 5 books not related to your studies. You know how the system works and can confidently apply it to your studies.

Alex

OK thanks. You seem to be doing all of the replying.

IMO activation is very important. After I took Photoreading the first time, I thought I had to do automatic activation. Maybe it was because of what my brother told me his teacher told him and what another guy I knew told me about Photoreading, but my instructor did say to expect to do 40 or so minutes activating. Instead I Photoread over 100 books in a month and did not activate them, and continued that practice for some time. I did invent my own effective recall techniques for taking tests but I still did not get conscious retention until I decided to do the whole system and use super reading, dipping, and rapid reading.