Because many people go on auto-pilot when they takes notes. They switch off their brains and become passive sponges or tape recorders, assuming that later on, they will only need to act like a pair of speakers to play back what was written down. The answers to these questions might be important, but asking them does not indicate that critical thinking has been going on, as do the earlier questions. As you can see, the successful student will necessarily have to work hard. But just as a gymnast would be foolish to expect to succeed at a complex maneuver on the first try at an important competition, as foolish would be a student who expected to pass tests requiring higher-order thought processes without first practicing these same processes.
Successful students take pains to carry out some sort of lecture follow-up activity.
For many, this means rewriting their lecture notes. A lot of students find this activity to be very tedious. An alternative follow-up activity is a strategy known as Concept Mapping. Better than rewriting your notes, it helps you to discern the patterns and relationships between concepts. Much research supports the effectiveness of this strategy in helping students learn complex material.