Pages Read Is a Bad Metric for Learning

My Personal Experience:
So I have had a goal for a bit for reading joy of account. I have adjusted the rate a few times far as pages. Read. Some days went great I got a lot out of read the material other days I was tired and the material would not quite stick to my brain. I am near the end of the book and while I definitely learning some things I feel if you tested my on the material I would not get the greatest grade. I honestly went into it wanting to master the material. This brings me to some reasons while pages read is not a good metric for learning.

Issues With Pages Read Metric:

  1. For starters a page varies in length from to book. So it can be hard to judge how many pages should be read.

  2. Reading the material in no way demonstrates that you understood the material you just read. Sometimes you can start reading on auto pilot and realize you cant even really describe what you just read.

  3. Pages read does not really take into account the difficulty of the material. At the beginning of the book reading 20 pages might be fine but in the middle of the book the material might be dense and hard to understand. You can adjust rate but depending on when you discover this issue it might be a problem if you need to wait a week.
    Now rarely is it helpful to point the flaws in one method only to not have any better solution. After thinking of the above I have made a system that I will be testing that I think will fix the issue described above.

A New Metric Sections Mastered:

The new metric I am going to test is sections mastered. This metric gets rid of a minimum of pages read. A section can be 2 pages, 5 pages, 7 pages or what ever amount you want. However what ever the section length is you must follow the system laid out below:

  1. First you read the section once. You are just trying to get a general idea of the material.

  2. You read the section a second time. Write down any questions that pop into your head about what you are reading. Do not try to answer them yet.

  3. Read the section a third time. This time go over it real slowly making sure you are understanding everything. If you need re read a part if you really struggle with it. Answer the questions from the last step. Also create flashcards on items that you feel would be useful to memorize.

  4. Memorize the flashcards you made in the last step.

  5. Write down at least one major thing you learned. Write how this knowledge could be applied. Find one task you can do that you could apply the material to your life. Or if it is something more abstract say you are learning about black holes you could create a task to explain it to a friend or record your self explaining it. Point is you somehow demonstrate that you really understand the material.

  6. Read the questions and answers for the last two sections you have done. Also review the major thing you learned from the last two sections you learned.

  7. Review the flashcards for the last two sections.

Now I know the above is a lot but I feel like it ensures you are not only learning the material but that you master it. If you are just reading a book to get a general idea about something than pages read would serve you fine.

What is everyone’s thoughts on this? I know sometimes my thoughts can be a bit unorganized so let me know if something does not make sense or if you have suggestion of some changes.

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