How The Elite 5% Ace Exams

When you take an important exam - do you read your test questions and text material three times, or are you happy to complete it once?

The answer for 95% of us is we are lucky to read the exam once.

Two medical doctors came to us about the problem they were having passing their medical boards to practice in the U.S. They were old friends who grew up in Iran, practiced medicine there for about 15 years, and decided to emigrate to the U.S. to join their family.

After two failures - they panicked and sought help.

They explained that both understood English and had graduated from medical schools in the U.S. It was not the answers to medical questions that cause the problem, but not having time to complete the last one-third of the exam.

The Strategy

Both doctors spent the entire weekend with us learning speed reading strategies. By the end of day-1, both physicians had doubled their reading speed, without any loss of comprehension.

After they completed the second day's six hours, both were reading three-times faster than their original starting speed, and their comprehension had improved about 10%. It is irrelevant that they doubled their memory.

The Test

Speed readers take a test differently than the other 95%, you might want to compare their approach to your own.

Skimming - the first bite at the apple

Skimming is the fastest form of reading both the questions and the text. It is an overview searching for the Topical Sentences - the core ideas of the text, and discovering the locations of the answers to the questions.

If we have a general idea of which sections of the text contain the answers, we will find the specific answers on our next perusal because we have two more bites at the apple.

The skimming strategy contains two elements - reading each sentence in what we call Single-Chunking/Diagonal: indenting a few words both left-and-right, and focusing on the 80% of the middle, and secondly, moving our eyes Diagonally from the end of one-sentence, to the beginning of the succeeding sentence.

It is easier to physically skim the sentences on a page, moving both lineally and vertically, than it is to explain how - using words.

Where are your eyes focusing?

We strongly recommend you use a pen to act as a pacer and underline (without the pointer marking the page), the sentences, as you move quickly down the pages.

Your eyes pay no attention to the underlining pen, but focus on the center of the words of the sentences. You move your eyes (and head), left-to-right across the first sentences, and right-to-left (toward the beginning), of the following sentence).

We call it single-chunking/diagonal because you are visually grouping 80% of each sentence in one single eye-fixation. Compare this to the average college graduate who stops and mentally hears in his/her mind each-and-every-word in the sentence.

If there is an average of ten words in a sentence - non-speed readers will make eight-to-ten eye-fixation pauses. Chunking is choosing to see words in groups, sections and phrases.

Skimming is flying across and down the sentences at up to 650 words per minute. Put that into prospective by realizing the average college graduate reads at about 200 words per minute, with a 60% recall.

When you have finished skimming (your first reading), you have grasped the key ideas and some important details contained in the text. You have a good idea of the location in the text of many of the answers to the exam questions you are focused on.

You even have time to jot down a few notes about what you finished skimming.

Scanning

This second reading is slower than skimming, but is similar in strategy. We call it Double-Chunking/Diagonal, because you are grouping the words of each sentence into two-separate clauses.

If there is an average of ten words in a sentence, you physically divide the sentence into two chunks - of five-words each.

Remember, you always use your pen as a pacer by underlining the sentence, and move left-to-right across the sentence, and return to the succeeding sentence, moving right-to-left.

This is your second view of both the questions and the text, and you will find that much of the material seems very familiar to you. You job this time is to jot down more of the answers, and check off where other answers are located in the material.

Screening

Your third reading is the slowest of all, and is known as Triple-Chunking/Diagonal. Keep using your pen as a pacer to underlining the sentences you read, and keep your eyes centered on the words of each paragraph.

Triple-Chunking/Diagonal means you are dividing (sectioning), each sentence into three-phrases, as you move horizontally and vertically down the page.

Now, reading is easy because the material is so familiar, and finding the answers after your third reading of the questions is a snap. You can almost go immediately to the location in the text where the answers are found.

Remember, screening is seeing each sentence as three separate clauses or sections, and moving diagonally from the last chunk of each sentence, right-to-left to the beginning of the next sentence. You continue this strategy down the paragraphs.

Endwords

What have you accomplished? You have read with a purpose and strong concentration the questions and text of the exam - three-times.

It has taken you the same amount of time to speed read the test three-times, while non-speed readers are still trying to complete and answer the exam - once.

Do you have to be an academic genius to conclude that skimming-scanning- screening the questions and text three-times, is a far better strategy than reading it only once?

Over one million graduates of speed reading have used this system to Ace their exams, courses and degrees. It works for them; it will absolutely work to improve your scores and self-confidence.

The secret of Skimming-Scanning-Screening is getting in the flow (your zone), and expect and know you are in control of the exam. You will be reading a minimum of three-times faster than your peers, with better comprehension and long-term memory. You will do so well with this strategy, if will feel unfair. Do it anyway, you deserve to succeed.

By the way, those two Iranian doctors did in fact ace their medical boards, and are presently practicing in New York City.

See ya,

copyright 2006