Forums IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ PhotoReading, Memory Optimizer trouble with questions

I am having trouble coming up with questions for novels/etc. It seems a bit more obvious to me the kinds of questions and purposes you could have from a text book on law(just read some topics) because you are looking for specific information about a specific something that you are studying. With a novel, I cant seem to do that. I have to read them a lot for school.

Right now I have to read the red badge of courage. My purpose of the book(not sure if this would qualify as my purpose under PR, but I certainly know its why I am reading the book) is because I have to and need to get a good grade on the test. I dont know if that counts as my purpose under PRing or not, but that is why I have to read it. With questions, I am completely lost. All I have been able to come up with is stuff like:
1. Who is henry fleming(the main character mentioned on back of book...)
2. How did he get involved in the war?(the book is about him going to war)

And besides that im completely lost. I know the book is about him going to war, there isnt chapter names for me to look for when trying to form questions. I notice that the majority of the book is about him being at war. What kinds of questions and purposes should I have for this kind of thing? "I am reading this to be able to make a good grade on a multiple choice test(I hope anyways..)?"
Or what? I have always noticed I have had problems forming questions and such for novels. There isn't ever much to guide me like in textbooks where each section has its own bold faced title telling what the section is about, etc. I just read some more about activation and saw the idea of imagining you were sitting down with the writer and could ask questions. What would you ask. The thing is, its for school test. I dont know what I need to ask because I dont know the questions the teacher will ask. I need to simply understand the book and everything that goes on in it I believe...Thats how most book tests are for novels at school.

I have never gotten activation down and I believe a main problem is I have never gotten the purpose/question part down. It would make sense. I really want to try and start understanding and having the system work for me with this book. It is a book that isn't too long, 90 pgs., and our class has 4 weeks till the test basically. It would be a great one to practice on because its short and there is time to do it, and it would also get school work out of the way. I don't have a lot of time to sit around and pick any book to do that I would have limitless time on, because I have school books to read! So this school book is a great one to practice on. I have tried it before but have never gotten it down. I believe what has happened is I have just activated so many times so slowly, in turn I eventually read most of the book from the start. Just not straight through. lol. And didn't even feel like I had much of an understanding afterwards. Maybe one of my problems is I don't know all the proper techniques? I am trying to learn straight from the book because I have no money. I never really got the tangerine technique down, or anything like that. All I can do so far is simply look around trying to find words to form questions out of, which once I get them I have trouble forming questions. I can easily see the blip no problem and things like that, but am not sure if my mind is clear enough for it to even be working. I have read your not supposed to think about anything else and such when PR, but that just never has worked for me. My mind starts to wander a little and I try and bring it back, but then I find it wandering again. If I am supposed to go into like a complete hypnosis state, that has never worked. When I am PR, I am aware of whats going on around me. If people are yelling downstairs, sometimes my mind starts focusing on their conversation. If my mom calls me to come eat, I easily hear her and know she said it, im not so out of it into a PR state that I dont realize whats going on. As I PR, I realize when I get to a new chapter because I see the bold words saying Chapter 2(although I cant necessarily read them, I know they say that) and I know when I have gotten to the end of the book and have ran into extra notes at the end of the book. In textbooks I know when I have gone through the section I was supposed to PR and dont suddenly pop out of my PR state at the end of the whole textbook. Is this normal? Or am I supposed to be completely out of it in a trance that I dont know where I am or what Ive read in the book?

[This message has been edited by superman857 (edited September 25, 2003).]

Hey superman,
I just read the Red Badge of Courage for school also. We had to read it and then write an essay on it. I'm still a beginning PReader, and the book was one of my first experiences. I'm pretty sure PRing accelerated the proccess a great deal!

Here's what I did:

I previewed the book (read the introduction, flipped through the pages, read a page here and there; I didn't really take any trigger words out)

Then I PR it.

Then I waited for the incubation period. After that, I just started super reading/ dipping the entire book. I went from start to finish fairly quickly. I stopped at certain points, read a page, then moved on. I did this passing of the entire book I think about 3 times. By then, I had a pretty good idea of the book.

After that, I made a mind map of the entire book, pertaining to the essay I had to write. I also went to sparknotes.com, and rapid read various things there.

After that, using my mind map, I wrote my essay very quickly, since I had all my main points down already.

I spent a total time of about 3 1/2 hrs. with the entire project, including the writing of the essay. I know this is a bit slow, but some of it is due to procrastination. Also, it's an improvement from before, and I'm still just learning the PR system.

Hope this helps!

--ambiguousendeavors--

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:

While I superread/dipped the entire book, I just formulated simple questions in my mind. I didn't write them down or anything.

For example, as I was reading the beginning, and Henry was talking about fleeing from battle, I asked myself if Henry would also flee from a battle, and if so, then why?

Also, since part of my essay dealt with writing about the social and political aspects of the book, I continually asked myself as I read whether this was an aspect, or this, or this....

--ambiguousendeavors--

so far thats about how im doing it. we just have to have the first 30 pages read by tommorrow which ive gone through that section of it twice fairly close to the same way you did. Well, I think mine was kinda a mixture of rapid reading and super reading/dipping at the same time. lol but I guess it kinda worked. I got a close enough idea about what had happened and started to recognize some of the main people like jim and henry and wilson. Then I went to sparknotes and read through the first 6 chapters(30 pages) there just to make sure I had it all clarified etc.

I think what I will try and do, and hopefully with the help of yall when I have trouble, is try and improve my PR as I go through this section by section. Since I read 1/4 of the book every week, I will try and improve my photoreading section by section like that. I know it probably isnt as good as photoreading book by book and improving because I know your supposed to go through the whole book instead of sections of books and stuff like that, but this way will let me have time to do it while getting this book out of the way, and hopefully improve myself in just this one book, at least a little. It gives me 3 tries to activate(I did PR the whole book, but not activate the whole book) to improve with. So hopefully the last 1/4 of the book that I am reading should work out pretty good compared to the first 1/4 that I just read. I donno im just tryin to work somethin out.

I wrote an article on asking questions it covers what you usually consider when reading novels. If you would like a copy email me and as for the questions article.

Alex

Superman,

The articles that Alexk wrote were the articles that also helped me when I was reading the Red Badge of Courage.

When I was activating the book, I also superread/dip and rapid read. It was a mixture, like how you're doing it. It was actually cool how quickly the main ideas just jumped out at me.

Today we got in groups and discussed the parts we had read with our groups and filled out a worksheet and such busy work like that. One thing I noticed is something Im not sure if it is normal or not for this to happen. There was a passages section, and it had 6 passages. There were 5 that I had completely not seen before(you know how when your superreading/etc. your goin through you notice lines that you have already read and such like that and know what part its talking about there and just keep goin right over it? anyways, at least I do) but I hadnt seen them before I dont think. Is this normal? I really hadnt ever seen them before during any of my "reading" of the book. I could kinda make sense about what he was probably referring to in the passages but I hadnt recognized any of the passages or sentences themselves. It was also harder for me to make sense about them than it was for the other people in the group that had read the book word for word and had already read the passages. All I could do was assume what he was talking about and all, when they actually knew. Sometimes I was pretty close on the whole concept in the passage while others I wasnt. Is this normal? Is there any way to help with this? Most tests I usually have over novels have some sort of passages/quotes section that I need to know who is saying what quote or what the concept is in the passage. Last year I tried photoreading a little when I first started but the test on that book was pretty hard for the passages and quotes section.

Yes that it is highly probable that you missed those with superreading and dipping.

Since you have to analyse the book section by section perhaps you could activate it more like this.

Photoread the whole book, Do say an hours activation of the whole book using superreading and dipping. When it comes to an assigned section (x number of pages) give each of those pages a 10 to 15(max) seconds of superreading and dipping. Then a rapid read that section. Remember that rapid reading is reading everything adjusting your pace slowing down for detail and speeding up on the stuff that you do know.

Alex

hey alex I got that article. I think it should help me out a lot for novels/etc. One thing that I am wondering now though...For school, it would be very helpful to have as many of those example questions answered as possible. When you say you should pick 3-5 questions before going into photoreading or any kind of reading, does that mean I should just pick 3 or so questions and then activate the book? And then for the next activation do the same thing with three other questions? And so on until I think I have answered the number of questions?(ex. 15 questions I want answered..3 each time, 5 activations..) Is that right or is there a better way to do it?

Start out with 3 questions when you find the answer you can quickly get more questions or be open to the questions that come up while activating. It is so that you can remain focused on looking for answers. With only 3 general questions you know at the end of the activation that you will have 3 answers at the very least.

Have you ever noticed that the more you try to remember the harder it becomes to remember? It's easier to remember 3 questions find the answer and when you found the answer forget about the question and ask another one.

So when you begin activating you're thinking of 3 general questions this way you know at the end of your activation you will have at least 3 answers. Notice I say at least. Because while activating you may find those answers within the first 5 minutes. Those answers may trigger additional and perhaps very important questions. Now if you're mind is already concentrating on all the possible questions you dreamed up from your trigger words. It is quite likely to choke? (for want of a better description) and ignore the questions that the answers produce. Because once you get involved with the activation it becomes a bit like having someone explain something to you.

Have you ever had someone come up to you with a question? You give the answer and want to explain some more but they cut you off with another question, so you give the answer to the next question but want to explain futher and can't. You know they missed the whole point because they didn't let you explain? If you haven't experienced this you've probably seen movies where this happened. The character asked a question and got the answer and cut the speaker off with the next question without considering, "what else should I know?" As a result of only waiting for the answer to their question without looking for more they wind up in trouble somehow. Why didn't you tell me? Is usually the question they ask when they find that they are in the wrong place.

The above is just an anology that could be summarised with, If the cup is full there is no room for more

To activate means to be active with the text and allowing it to trigger further questions while you activate. So when I suggest starting with 3 it is just to get the action going. You may not find any answers to those inital 3 but if you were open they will have triggered 3 more important questions. At the end of an activation pass you may have answered as many as 15 questions. If you have time during an activation pass and found all 3 answers and they didn't trigger anymore questions then grab 3 more from your list. The idea of starting with 3 is to keep the mind uncluttered yet focused.

Alex

[This message has been edited by AlexK (edited September 27, 2003).]