I am relatively new to photoreading but I am now sort of very confused. Well, to start with, your post stated-"regular reading is not recommended because it will be a waste of time!!? But what about comprehension? Okay if I have relatively lot of time to explore books, then!?
No I said if you want to waste your time go for it.
You do not really need to read every page of a book.
You still gain as much or better comprehension by activating in layers. Going into the book and pulling out the information in short blocks of time rather than reading from beginning to end.
As for complete comprehension from reading from beginning to end. That is usually an illusion. Just because you heard the words in your head while you were reading and understood the meaning, that does not mean you actually remember or understand the information in the book. To understand you have to test your knowledge against what you know and build on that.
I finished 29th novel yesterday all I read word for word after photoreading them. Never at any moment I felt any familiarity with any of the novel. If they have been in my memory, then why dont they showing any sign of recognition!?
This is my confusion than a question.
If you PhotoRead the book and just read it, you're using traditional reading. Beginners do not rapid read. Nor will you notice any familiarity because your approach is still passive. The only way you actually develop rapid reading skills is by doing activation layers. It's also where you start noticing you're guessing what comes next in the text.
Yes Rapid Reading is an activation technique. And I feel I've been repeating myself and saying this in almost every post lately so I'm going to bold it.
Rapid Reading is reading from the beginning and ending at the end. It uses any and all the reading the activation techniques. It is the LAST activation approach one would consider once they have done enough activation layers and feel that they just want to check if they missed something.
The only thing that Rapid Reading (the only activation technique)has in common with traditional reading Is that this is the only time we start at the beginning of the book chapter or article and end at the end of the book chapter or articlePassing exams need a lot of study Alex. I am not a very sharp guy at studies.
Which is why you don't want to waste time on trivial information that you already know.
I respect your posts but they also confuse me at times. At one post you said one doesnt need to know everything. Well, what if when we dont know what will we be served in the question paper?
You ask your instructor. You be surprised how informative they are in telling you what you need to study. It's usually described in the course curriculum and if you're smart you get hold of previous year exams. Good teachers usually teach what you need to know and will guide you to learn what you need to pass the exams.
Also ask the students a grade above you.
My class teacher doesnt know photoreading. She starts from the page one of chapter one and teaches all the way till the end of the book till the end of the semester. She has a reason for doing so. She does it because she knows everything is important in the books. There are questions asked from every part of the book, be it first line or the last line of the book. Not everything can be asked in one question papers, but what if there are multiple question papers on the same subject? Thats why we need to study everything.
Brilliant. That means you can PhotoRead the book. And PhotoRead the chapters again before the class and allow the class to help you activate it.
And I also remember Paul mensions somewhere that rapid reading is a activation techniquw. It may seem like the regular reading but the comprehension it gives you is beyond the regular reading without photoreading. I swear I read this somewhere! May be that I did not understand what he meant by rapid reading, but I must mension that it doesnt work. Atleast hasnt started working in my case.
Nope because you haven't actually learned rapid reading if you're skipping the other activation layers.
I am writing this because I am very confused. My reading needs are huge and my textbooks are really dense. I am looking for an edge over studies so that I get into a good university. I have friends that study by regular reading and they manage to study for 10 hours each day. I can not do that, but I was willing to invest in smarter reading techniques to get over my inability to study for very long hours.
Confusion is good it means your mind is working on it. Now be more playful and see what happens if...
If you want to study smarter, PURPOSE. Define and know your purpose. Do what you can to bring it to the front of your mind. If your purpose is in the next 30 minutes to "learn this chapter so that I can pass the test on this." You become focused and mind map the information you'll need from that chapter and have it ready for review.
At the end of the activation you'll look over your mind map perhaps write a summary and walk away. Take drink get some exercise whatever. Then you come back to study some more you spend reviewing your mind map(3 min), checking in (Prepare) Taking a moment to peruse the next chapter or subject you plan to study and activate, some more.
But now I am not seeing very good results. When you suggested, I also increased number of activation passes, but I still am not getting much... the book piles are really big, I wonder how I am going to deal with all that with this current pace of activation.
My guess is your old strategies haven't worked as well either because you haven't incorporated PhotoReading into those big piles of books. How often have you PhotoRead each of those books already?
Seriously speaking I have not found very convincing results with novels and textbooks. The books I got nice results are actually easy on brains. With novels and textbooks I photoread them daily, affirm my purpose daily and activate in many many passes till my daily quota of study doesnt get complete. But you know, information I gather doesnt make any sense.
How are you approaching those books? Tell me how do you activate novels. And how do you activate textbook. Lets start a new thread on this topic. Because from what you're telling me I pick up that your approach lacks strategy. We can probably do something about that.
Photoreading worked very nice on books that were not hard. But now I have tougher books, it doesnt seem to be working... it feels like your best friend leaves you when you need him the most.
I am very nervous.
When your best friend leaves you when you think you need him most often you're challenged to move out of your comfort zone. This is actually a good thing.
When books are tougher, because the information is new. You going to have to invest more activation layers or more PhotoReading. They are tougher with traditional reading as well and more overwhelming because with traditional reading you have no end in sight. With PhotoReading you decide how much time you're going to spend to get what you can in that time.
I've found myself reading much more technical books since learning PhotoReading. I do spend more time with them than books on subjects I'm familiar with. The newness makes creates a sense of tougher. It isn't really.
The missing link is you haven't yet created any memory threads to hook this information onto. And when you look at piles of books you start freaking a little. And thinking "it's hard for me." And that self talk creates the barrier that makes it seem harder and you experience it as harder.
This is where it is important to chunk it. Like eating an elephant, one bite at a time. That's why you activate in layers.
As I already said, I suspect your strategy is not working for you start a new thread and tell me how you're activating textbooks. Activating Novels.
Alex
