Does Photoreading work for maths+physics?

[jzen147]

I'm going to uni in a couple of months (studying civil engineering) and was wondering if photoreading would benifit me in these areas? many thanks

[KazeCraven]

The more dense the material the less effective PhotoReading is.

Still, you might benefit from learning to relax properly while reading, or perhaps knowing how you should be reading. I went into Chemical Engineering for a year, and I never needed to read much for physics or engineering, so I would say it would help minimally.

[Remiel]

My guess is that it depends on your learning style. I, for example, am a kinesthetic learner. This means for me to learn math properly I have to do problems. Other's can learn by reading just fine.

The question is what type of a learner are you?

[Hanselich]

Photoreading does help you mainly when trying to excerpt information from texts, which are written in fluid manner. For user manuals and more technically written stuff photoreading doesn't really work.

That's my experience with photoreading.

[Remiel]

There isn't usually a whole lot of fluff in technical manuals is there?

[runningbird]

I am apt to say no - because learning technical material for me involves pausing to think and let it sink in a lot. However, there have been times during open book tests when I read paragraphs of technical writing extremely fast - photo speed. It helps if you are familiar with it, and if there's a will...

[KazeCraven]

Also reading the material multiple times can be helpful, but it's time consuming unless you know how to properly skip over the material you already know and focus on the stuff you didn't quite catch the first few times.

[Ben1]

Originally Posted by jzen147

I'm going to uni in a couple of months (studying civil engineering) and was wondering if photoreading would benifit me in these areas? many thanks

Photoreading does not work well with information dense books like textbooks. I think that the types of books you would be reading for a civil engineering course would not be well suited to photoreading.

[Lanya]

I tried some Photoreading when I was taking a statistics class. When looking for important stuff, I usually went straight to the equations. The mind map ended up being a diagram of equations, and for a bit more detail, for each equation, I had a couple words for what some of the variables meant...or what the equation is used for.

It did help me get straight to the point of, "These are the important equations. These are what the associated concepts are. And these are what the equations are used for." The mind maps ended up being pretty good outlines for reviewing for exams.

Try photoreading a high school math book, if you still have one...or buy a university textbook early, or some textbook from the library, and test it out on that. I think that'll give you the best idea of what to expect.

[Hyperchiller]

Photoreading is a learning system as opposed to a mere technique.

It should work on all resources - even math books and fiction. However it will be less effective as maths is something that requires understanding rather than absorption of information.

Most maths can be simplified to a few formula. Understanding those formulae will be the key. Those formula will manifest into numerous examples and questions.

However the system of Photoreading - learning with purpose and asking the author questions will serve any learning goal well.

For me personally, Photoreading doesn't work with actuarial studies. However the strategies in the Photoreading learning system - of having a purpose while learning and having questions is a universal learning strategy.

[Alvinneo]

I remembered Paul Schelee said that one of his course attendee actually photoread a programming language , and as a result get 'used' to it. this is like spending a shorter period of time and mastering something which takes alot of time and energy.

So , in the case of Math,Mechanics or Physics we can assume(based on the above text) ,that by using Photoreading whole mind system on these very dense books, we actually get all these experience of interaction with these books subconsciously. And all we need to do is just to 'recall' these information/technique/skills which we desire, and upon that we should match an expert on that subject whom uses the traditional learning method of sheer hardwork and practise.

I had been Photoreading for over 4 years now, and so far, all these absurd claims made by him on dense material,of which i hope was true, was pure ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ....

I tried it on Roger Penrose - the road to reality, and all i got was a general idea of what this book is about, and a mind map full of equations, and no, you can't possibly have a 'short sentence describing the equation' , the act of understanding his equations are troublesome,tiring, and too time consuming, left alone summarizing it, and left alone his abstract ideas.I read the book normally anyway, and could get through more than 30 pages in a week.

Once i photoread an electrical electronics principles book, and did a test on it, it was terrible.Photoreading might not be efficient in dense material, but it is a great technique to use on long ,wordy and lengthy books.

The same goes to the RG technique.

[gurusnackie]

Photoreading can help with any type of text. The denser the material, the more times you'll want to go through the text, and at different levels. The photoreading step is only one of the steps of the system - use the steps that are appropriate for the reading type. For example, for your Math & Physics books, I'd suggest starting out the semester by photoreading all of your text several times. Throughout the semester photoread the chapters that you are studying at the time. You will not 'know' the material from just doing the photoreading step. You'll need to go through the text slowly as well and work out the problems. I've used photoreading for Statistics, Calculus, Economics, etc....I found that if I had photoread the material before going through it at a slower pace I would understand the material better. So yes, it does help, but don't expect miracles to happen.