- #1
kdinser
- 337
- 2
Just for curiosities sake, do you find that you can get a lot out of a science or math textbook by just reading the chapter and looking over the examples?
The reason I ask is, I've been struggling with reading the chapters in my physics and differential equations courses this semester. I just can't seem to stay focused while reading and end up reading the same passage over and over again, getting up frequently, and basically just wasting an hour and getting nothing out of it.
So, this morning I tried an experiment. I got up to start a new physics chapter and just went right to the problems. After attempting to solve a few problems (usually unsuccessfully), I then went back and tried to figure out how to do them by the examples. If the examples weren't enough to understand the nature of the problems and their solutions, only then could I get anything out of reading the chapter. It's like, I have to try to understand the nature of the problems before I'll have a chance to understand the theory. Is this totally backwards from most people? This could also explain why I get almost nothing out of lectures.
The reason I ask is, I've been struggling with reading the chapters in my physics and differential equations courses this semester. I just can't seem to stay focused while reading and end up reading the same passage over and over again, getting up frequently, and basically just wasting an hour and getting nothing out of it.
So, this morning I tried an experiment. I got up to start a new physics chapter and just went right to the problems. After attempting to solve a few problems (usually unsuccessfully), I then went back and tried to figure out how to do them by the examples. If the examples weren't enough to understand the nature of the problems and their solutions, only then could I get anything out of reading the chapter. It's like, I have to try to understand the nature of the problems before I'll have a chance to understand the theory. Is this totally backwards from most people? This could also explain why I get almost nothing out of lectures.