Are You Studying Physics and Maths Efficiently?

[Fluxthroughme]

First of all, let me preface by saying if anyone reads this and has links/further reading on learning that I would benefit from consulting, please post them. It would be appreciated.

Now, I do pretty well in physics/maths. My issue isn't so much that I don't know HOW do study, but more than I don't know if I'm doing it right. Mainly, I worry that I'm doing too much. For example, I will go through all the example questions at the end of a chapter, even though I feel like, for a lot of them, I'm not getting anything out of it. My reasoning for doing as such is that, every now and then, I DO get something from a question I didn't think I'd struggle with. However, I am essentially getting that in 1/5, maybe 1/10 questions. Yet if I didn't do this, I would potentially miss out on insights I gain from the questions that surprise me. I fear the answer is just "Nothing you can do about it", and that won't surprise me, but as I may be missing something, I thought it wise to seek advice on the matter.

Further, and less important, I am curious about study on higher level. I am currently only a first year student, but I was wondering, when I get to topics I need to learn, but which are of very high level, how do you 'get' them? Clearly, there wouldn't be a book with questions/answers in, so how do people 'get' things?

Thanks :)

 

[mfb]

There are books with questions and answers for nearly everything, including extensions of the standard model of particle physics which require both quantum field theory and general relativity.
At the level of current research, doing this research is the best (and probably only proper) way to learn it, of course.

My reasoning for doing as such is that, every now and then, I DO get something from a question I didn't think I'd struggle with.

Try to find the reasons why you did not spot the problems before? This would help to filter interesting questions without doing all of them.

 

[Fluxthroughme]

Try to find the reasons why you did not spot the problems before? This would help to filter interesting questions without doing all of them.

I'm not sure if I can. Usually, it's just me finding out I didn't understand something as I thought I did, which I can only realize by actually doing the problem.