I Use These 7 Questions To Remember Everything I Read,
Do You Have 5 Minutes?
Reading is fascinating. But it can also be
frustrating if you just cross off your book list without going into depth.
Do you often forget what you have just read? Or have you ever spent a
lot of time on finishing a book but in the end you couldn’t tell the main ideas
of the book clearly?
It is not about your inability to memorize
things. But you’re just not active enough in reading.
Reading ineffectively might be frustrating
Reading quickly just for the sake of
completing a book is a mistake we easily make. We skim through paragraphs in
the hope of absorbing as much information as possible within a short period of
time. But then we only focus on the parts we understand and miss out the full
picture presented in the book. It is unlikely that we will be able the recall
the content after a day or so.
A common question that we usually ask
ourselves after reading is whether we like the book or not. While this is also
important as reading is supposed to be fun, simply asking this kind
of yes-no question cannot make reading meaningful and reflective. Worse
still, if we only stick with the books we like, we will limit our exposure
to different knowledge.
To practice active reading, generating a list
of questions before digging into the content is a good approach. [1] But
you might wonder what kinds of questions you should ask and here are some
questions that you might want to take a look for reference:
1. If I
can get only 3 things from the book, what are they? How will I apply them in
daily life?
Some books
consists of piles of information that we might feel overwhelmed. Sometimes it
is better not to overestimate our abilities to memorise things because we
can rarely get more than 3 messages from a book. Keep identifying what
information is more useful to you when you read. After all, there’s no
point of remembering or jotting down information that you can’t apply in
daily life as it is very likely that you will forget it the next day.
2. What
are the arguments or suggestions made by the writer?
No one
writes without any purposes. Even the book is a novel instead of the practical
type, the authors have some purposes in their minds, either to convey messages
or to persuade readers. Spending some time to figure out their key points makes
us easier to digest the whole piece without missing any important insights.
3. What
problems does the writer attempt to solve?
Nearly
every book is about problem-solving. Even in a book about literature, there is
always a climax in the plot and that’s what the writer attempt to solve. The
problem indicated might not be explicit but if we can find it out, we can
always learn from it to improve our problem-solving skills.
4. What
strategies does the writer use to convey the key ideas in the book?
Reading is
one of the good ways to improve our writing skills. We can pay extra attention
to the writing style of the writers and how their ideas are presented, such as
the diction, rhetorical devices and organisation used, to make our writings
more appealing to readers.
5. What do
I know about the topic of the book covers? How what the book says is different
from what I originally know?
We usually
give up reading a book because we find no connection between what we know and
what the book talks about. Before reading, it is better for us to do some
brainstorming and to recall your previous knowledge related to the topic so
that you are ready to explore more.
6. Are
there any particular things I do not understand in the book?
It is
quite impossible to be know-it-all so it is quite certain that we will
encounter with something which seems unfamiliar, or something that we don’t
agree on. Skipping those parts is not the best solution for it because this
would limit our horizons. Instead, delving into the unfamiliar parts or
opposite ideas is the best way to take ourselves to another level.
7. Which
part of the book I like or dislike? And why?
Reading a
book is not about reading the text only but also reading ourselves. Asking
ourselves this question enables us to be reflective learners. Discovering more
about our tastes allows us to choose a better reader that fits our
preferences.
It might
take a longer time for us to read a book if we practice active reading using
the above questions. But we can definitely gain a lot more because we wouldn’t
rush just to finish a book without digesting the ideas.
http://www.lifehack.org/560549/asking-these-7-questions-can-help-you-get-the-most-from-book?ref=mail&mtype=daily_newsletter&mid=20170323_editor_pick&uid=687414&hash=707e797f7e757e6d794c856d747b7b3a6f7b79&action=click
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