HOW TO STUDY

There is a lot of misunderstanding about studying. Most of students have not been taught the principle behind really effective working. Imagine a graph showing the amount a person learns against the number of hours he works in a day. If he doesn't do any work, he learn nothing. If he he does one hour work he learns a certain amount. If he does two hours work he learns about twice as much . If he does more work he'll learn still more. However he tries to do twenty-three and half a hours works in one day, he'll be so exhausted that he'll remember anything: what he learn will be very little. If he did less work he'd learn more.

Now whatever the exact shape of the graph's curve, made by joining these points, it must have a crest. The skill in being a student consists of getting one's daily study as near the optimum point as possible.every day you study, bear this principle of the optimum in mind. When you feel yourself getting fatigued, if you find yourself repeatedly reading over the same paragraph and not taking it in, that's a pretty good sign you've reached the crest for the day and should stop.

Most ordinary students find their optimum at about five hours a day. Yours may be a little more or a little less-but if you get in five hours' good work a day, you will be doing well.

Now, what are you doing with yourself when you aren't working? Before examination some students do nothing at all except sit in a chair and worry. Here is another misunderstanding. People often think that the mind works like the body ,it does not. If one wanted to conserve physical energy in order to cut the maximum amount of firewood, one can lie flat on the bed and rest when one wasn't chopping. But the mind cannot rest. Even in sleep you dream, even you forget your dream. The mind is always turning. It gets its relaxation only by variety. that is what makes the mind rest.