To be sure, there are students for whom one exposure to an idea in a basic course is enough, but they either have read extensively or have an excellent background or a high degree of interest in the subject. For most students in most subjects, reading once is not enough. However, this is not to imply that an unthinking Pavlovian-like reading is necessary to understand and retain materials. Many students automatically regress or reread doggedly with a self-punishing attitude. This is the hardest way to do it.
Good reading is selective reading .
It involves selecting those sections that are relevant to your purpose in reading. Rather than automatically rereading, take a few seconds to quiz yourself on the material you have just read and then review those sections that are still unclear or confusing to you. The most effective way of spending each study hour is to devote as little time as possible to reading and as much time as possible testing yourself, reviewing, organizing, and relating the concepts and facts, mastering the technical terms, formulas, etc., and thinking of applications of the concepts-in short, spend your time learning ideas, not painfully processing words visually . We are not sure just how this attitude develops, but some authorities have suggested that it stems from the days when the Bible was the main book read, savored, and reread. Indeed, the educated person was one who could quote long passages from these books from memory.