By "reading better", I mean absorbing/remembering what you read and also reading at a faster pace.

I've never been much of a guy who reads for leisure. I've always tried to read the least amount as possible to get by for school and I guess that's come back to bite me in the ass (although it could very easily be that I'm such a terrible reader and my lack of skill has forced me to avoid reading).

I've had to read more and more lately especially scientific journals for school and I've found myself completely lost. When I'm reading, I tend to zone out and even if I do concentrate, it seems like I'm not absorbing anything at all. It's not uncommon for me to reread sentences multiple times to try to absorb everything ; but even then, I don't still have trouble taking in what I'm reading.

I have friends who read 3x faster than me and they also seem to absorb more than me. Is this just a built up skill? How does one go about building this skill? What are some tips and tricks that you guys use to more effectively and efficiently read?

maybe ur dyslexic.

i think theres books you can read on speed reading. however it will probably take you too long and you wont absorb it.

yes, more reading will help you get better at both speed and comprehension. just keep at it...and try reading a little for fun, too, not just for school/work. that'll get your brain trained not to think of it as just a chore.

tl dr, but i recommend mike caro's book of tells.

I think Dominic's right in that if you see your reading as a chore, it becomes harder. (Sometimes much much harder.)

I've found it very helpful to prepare myself psychologically to read stuff that is difficult or that I don't care about or actively dislike. Doing so has huge positive effects on how much of it I retain, too. Tell yourself these things:

1. You're doing the reading for yourself.

Tell yourself and keep reminding yourself in a helpful, not scolding or judgmental way, throughout, that you are reading for YOUR benefit. You're not doing it just cuz you're supposeta, or you have to do this work for some crappy class you hate and will never be useful to you anyway, or for a part of your job that doesn't matter to anyone anyway and just reminds you how much you hate part of your life, etc.

2. You actually want to get good at this.

Whatever the subject may be, you LIKE the idea of mastering it and having it in your mental toolbox. You LOOK FORWARD to being as good as or even better than your peers with this info/subject. If there's any chance of recognition or reward for your mastery of the material, you look forward to that too.

3. You enjoy the process of reading it.

Never forget that when you're reading this material, you're working on your favorite subject -- yourself and how much you kick ass. This stuff you're reading is just a stand-in for that and one more example of your opportunities to rule. BECAUSE you're good enough to be good at it, you're good enough to ENJOY piecing its puzzle together and the slowly building feeling of accomplishment that entails; and however long it takes to read and master is not wasted time, but just time enough.

Both you and the book are both awesome, so that makes you even more awesome together.

If that sounds like crap, fake it until you make it, as they say. It can work.

There is a sick program called 'eyeQ' you can download it as a torrent I think, and it is a series of eye training exercises. You follow items around the screen, try to expand your field of vision, and speed reading exercises.

The method is to force reading/moving eyes extra fast and then when you're reading just kind of fast it seems easier to handle.

FYI, they tell you to do only 1 session a day and you probably shouldn't overdo it, I would get mad headaches whenever I had to read after trying to do 2 or 3 a day.

Maybe your, Handi-Capable

I don't think you can get better at reading complex documents without training your verbal reasoning skills. Generally this requires some form of quizzing after reading, both to give feedback on your comprehension, and force you to think about unexpected ideas.

Reading is about comprehending a passage in a meaningful way. The broader your awareness of possible meanings and implications, the easier it is to remember and "tag" what you read. If you do this enough, ideas begin to invoke images and related emotions, which gives you something palpable to grasp and manipulate. Most of the things we remember (read or experienced) are invisibly tagged with particular emotions and states of mind, and most of these are motivated by discovery of new material or the mastering of a challenge to your competence. Quizzing afterward is a great way to develop a set of these and give your brain a chance to discover its inadequacies of comprehension, and fix them.

Here is an example of a critical reading question from the Law School Admission Test. You can find these kind of things in English text books and college materials; this is where I'd start.

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But man is not destined to vanish. He can be killed, but he cannot be destroyed, because his soul is deathless and his spirit is irrepressible. Therefore, though the situation seems dark in the context of the confrontation between the superpowers, the silver lining is provided by amazing phenomenon that the very nations which have spent incalculable resources and energy for the production of deadly weapons are desperately trying to find out how they might never be used. They threaten each other, intimidate each other and go to the brink, but before the total hour arrives they withdraw from the brink.

Q: The main point from the author's view is that

1. Man's soul and spirit can not be destroyed by superpowers.
2. Man's destiny is not fully clear or visible.
3. Man's soul and spirit are immortal.
4. Man's safety is assured by the delicate balance of power in terms of nuclear weapons.
5. Human society will survive despite the serious threat of total annihilation.

If you don't own the journal, make a copy of the article and read with a pen in your hand (not a highlighter). Approach what you are doing as work because it is. Note key ideas and how those ideas are developed. You can do this simply enough by noting the thesis and the developing points. Also, if you don't understand something, just simply note "TK" for "to come" in the margin to remind you to go back to it. In addition, write short notes in the margins. You will be having a dialogue with the text.

For many people, this tends to make the process more active. This will also slow you down, but while you're getting used to reading for the meaning, you don't want to go faster.

Eventually, and it won't be too long, your reading speed will increase.

Re highlighting, I used to do this with many different colored thin-tipped pens and highlighters. I had a complicated system going, but it let me rocket through something already read to get all kinds of different things out of it quickly. It also made me give greater consideration to stuff as I was reading it, which made it more memorable automatically:

1. Blue underline was for minor points
2. Blue highlighter was for major points
3. Red underline was for critical points
4. Purple underline was for particularly amazing writing, just style etc.
5. I've forgotten what I used green for!
6. I'd sometimes draw a line from one congruence or argumentative development to another, to keep my eye on how an idea or ideas were being developed over long or complex texts that veered off into different tangents or elaborations

And various sized post-its would get stuck on the page with arrows on them pointing to a precise starting place for my own thoughts, questions, and arguments regarding a particular sentence or section. I used to have lots of books very heavily marked up this way. I would actually feel pretty proud of a particularly good reading.

You tend to do a lot of heavy mental work to get through some subjects, but it can be completely wasted, and your genuine insights can be forgotten or come to seem like something you shouldn't trust as you see the complexity of the subject unfolding before you. That's because as you keep reading, you get presented with new material, and the previous material you went through may need some genuine reflection that you haven't had time to give it before moving on, no matter how vivid your initial impressions and reactions. Soon the need to understand the new material makes you compress the nuances of the old into simplicities so as to maintain a continuous train of thought and understanding, though it may become a poor one as each new stimuli has its associations and implications pruned so as to become manageable in the rush to the next. Things that are particularly complex can begin to vanish as the mental overload to keep them workable and accessible becomes untenable in the face of the demands of new material.

Reading without understanding can be exhausting and disspiriting, and leave one feeling allergic to the material. It can also cram your head with a sort of mental shorthand of understandings that are insipid, third-rate, or just plain wrong. So often the best value received for time spent is if all that time is spent at 100% concentration and inspiration. Taking the time to understand and even relate to a subject on a personal level -- one's feelings, associations, memories, ideas, fantasies -- can burn it into one's memory so that recall and the ability to think about it at a high level are greatly improved.

That's one reason why the purple underline was as important to me as it was. Things that are beautiful, full of passion, or exquisitely done can link one to the emotional heart of the writing, and once that is shared between author and reader, the experience becomes immersive and memorable in itself, later serving as a mental key to quickly unlock the author's world at once instead of point by point. Remembering one good line can help you remember a scene, and remembering one good point can help you remember an argument, like a whiff of perfume can help recall a lost time.

Lol at the person who said read a book on speed reading. Hopefully a subtle level, but it made me laugh to have someone read a book, when their problem is reading.

Maybe you have ADHD? It seems like you may. Talk to your physician about it, he may give you a sample of medicine to try and see if it helps you concentrate.

I like to think I have an stellar command of the English language, but I am stumped by this question. This is probably why I scored a disappointing 580 on the verbal portion of my SAT almost 20 years ago. The author starts off one place, and ends up someplace completely different. I can't discern a prevailing "main point", given such a spread. I could make an argument for #1 or #5, or maybe even #3 or #4.

The first statement, "man is not destined to vanish," is too definite for #2 and too general for #4. And #1 is just a metaphor for #5 - the author isn't literally suggesting that mankind has a soul.

So #5 it is.

buying books is only good if you're going to mark em up, read em again, or refer back to them sporadically. like the bible. The Game is one that i keep coming back to. buying a book comes from the value from not only reading the words from that book, but reaching into the authors soul, taking his heart out to analyze the rhythm.

It definitely helps to fall in love with it, or at least pretend to.

Thanks everyone. I'll try to incorporate everyone's suggestions into my reading.

Also, I thought that the answer is 5. Is that correct??

Do you do that with, Fava beans and a fine Chianti.