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Speeeeeeeed Reeeeeeeead!

They say the Process is more important than the Product. I take a particular case of this generic adage to say Preparation for entrance exams is more enriching than the actual college education. Particularly I have learnt more (academically) in the 2 years of Bansal (Kota) than in 4 years of IIT. And I don't know about IIMs or whether I would make into one sometime now, but I am sure that the preparation for CAT is enriching me.Here I share with you one of the things I am learning.

I, having read lots of novels in the past 5-6 years, thought that my reading speed was fairly good.
When I wanted to boost my morale, one day, I told myself why not find out how much actually my reading speed is? I did and shocked myself with mere 130 wpm (words per minute). To give a perspective an average reader has a speed of 250 words per minute (or did it say average American reader , but how does it matter). I was not and never will be satisfied with average. After all average means neither good nor bad. Being that means "changed nothing in your life".

I tried many things. For instance I tried and listened to my coaching centre TIME's English faculty (no comments on him!) , I started wearing spectacles, I even for once thought it was all useless and it surely was!

So ya ! I will spare you the history otherwise it will start sounding like those dubbed American adds which come on the television at night. "Pehle main aisa tha. Sab dost Mera mazaak udaate the..par jab se maine....Meri zindagi sudhar gayi hai..."

The tool : www.Eyercize.com

3 tips:
  1. Don't regress : move back again to what you have already read
  2. Fixations (Eyercize helps you with it)
  3. Don't Subvocalize: and if you learn how to do it (i mean not do it) teach me. It is the most difficult and hence the most important part
All this works. It claims to improve your spped upto 1000 wpm. Think of it in this way . Even if it increases to 500 wpm , a person like me could read 4 times as many novels as I could otherwise. I could read 4 times the articles in the newspaper than I currently do in the same time or read the article 4 times faster.

There are competitions for this, and people read at above 1500 wpm there. The surprising part is the comprehension improves instead of reducing, as logically expected. The fastest known reader till date (I forgot his name) read at 2500wpm and his comprehension was so much that he could answer questions (proper nouns) about a biography which he had read only once an year ago.

The fundoo trick is : If you are currently at 240wpm (say) and want to go upto 350wpm(as a first step), try reading at 600 wpm on Eyecize for some time. After some time try reading at 300. It feels so much slower. Use it to your advantage!

The Eyercize bookmarklet feature is good too!

Feel free to ask in case I wasn't clear about anything. Work on this, I bet you will thank me later.

Comments

Novocaine said…
With increased reading speed, I would no longer be afraid to read longer blog entries :)
Eruditus said…
that is precisely my interest in advertising this :)
"Amrit" said…
thanks kinari and keep it up.. what most people who are lying vacant throwing pebels into a silent sea in their dreams .. need people like you to really recommend good things.. Your blog is great.. now think of advertising it.. :)
Ankit Mittal said…
I bow down to the erudite author of the blog, I plead thee to accept my humble request as ac co-author of this transcendental blog.

macha raha hai be....seriously godappa hai yeh toh.
Eruditus said…
thanks ankit for the great adjectives! which posts did you like? do comment on them to let me know.

I would love to have you as a co-author but this blog is more of a jotting down of my thoughts, so having a co-author would not allign with the spirit of the blog.

What we can do instead is, whenever you write a good entry to submit, just write it in your blog and please mail me the link. I will surely put it in here, if I find it commensurate.

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