Building
Tampilkan postingan dengan label Mata Kuliah Reading. Tampilkan semua postingan
Speed Reading Test Online
Is Speed Reading for You?
Instructions
|
Get ready to read, click the Start button and start reading. The button starts the timer. Don't speed but read normally to find your present reading level.
Click the Stop button as soon as you have finished. This will stop the timer and display your reading speed.
Before you start the real test you may click Start, scroll down without reading, then click Stop to see what happens. You may also size the window of your browser to adjust column width. |
Speed Reading Test
|
If top readers read at speeds of above 1000 words per minute (wpm) with near 85% comprehension, they only represent 1% of readers. Average readers are the majority and only reach around 200 wpm with a typical comprehension of 60%. This seems surprising since most readers, actively reading work documents, newspapers, magazines, books or the contents of a computer display are practicing daily for at least one hour. With such an intense training everyone should be close to top performances. Unfortunately, this is far from the real situation. The average reader is five times slower than the good reader. Things are even worse if we consider reading efficiency as well as speed. Reading efficiency is reading speed weighted by comprehension rate and it amounts to 200 x 60% or 120 efficient words per minute (ewpm) for the average reader and to 1000 x 85% or 850 ewpm for top readers. Thus, an efficiency ratio of seven divides these two categories. Compare the results of the average reader to other areas. We may imagine a sprinter practicing every day for several years on the running track and then just calmly walking for a race. We can also picture a racing driver never exceeding 30 mph or a pianist playing every day of the week for 20 years and only able to play music like a beginner. Unfortunately, since the age of 12, most readers do not substantially improve their efficiency and never reach their full capacity. Every computer-user who is also a slow typist is aware of the benefits he could obtain with a typing course, but nearly no one suspects the much higher profits he could reach by improving his reading comprehension and speed. The rapid improvement of voice recognition may gradually make typing virtuosity obsolete since a good typist performs well under the speed of speech. On the other hand, human or computer speaking, with an average speed of 150 wpm, will always remain many times slower than a good reader, without any consideration of the skimming and skipping possibilities. There are three possible ways to improve reading. The fastest is probably a speed reading seminar based upon good materials and animated by a dynamic instructor. It is quite usual for a slow reader to double and even triple his reading efficiency during a two-day class offering a positive atmosphere, carefully selected texts and comprehension tests. However, as this rapid and encouraging improvement is not sufficiently anchored, it often fades with time. A book about speed reading is the second possibility. Such a book usually provides speed and comprehension tests as well as techniques to improve reading. It often includes more general information about concentration, interest stimulation, skimming techniques and ways to approach a text. Some methods may include audio or videocassettes. A book-based method requires a good deal of time as well as a strong commitment from the reader. Finally, a speed reading computer program is probably the most efficient way to achieve top reading levels. Computers offer unique exercises to boost reading efficiency through interactivity, text animation and pacing. Higher reading skills obtained with a computer screen are totally transferable to reading from paper. Unfortunately the inverse way does not work so well. Speed reading software delivers enjoyable and fast paced training, thus giving the consistent practice necessary to break lifelong slow reading habits. This is the task that seminars and speed reading books usually leave up to the reader. |
FASTER READING, THROUGH FASTER COMPREHENSION
Innovative Solution to Faster Reading
- Read Whole Ideas at a Time
- Strengthen Comprehension
- Sharpen Concentration
- Reduce Vocalization
- Improve Retention
- Increase Speed
"Visual" Reading
Imagine turning your reading into a mental movie, and projecting ideas into your mind. Visualize the meaning of complete groups of words, and send your mind what it craves; conceptual images. This powerful technique is unlike anything you've tried before.Reading Word-Groups
The key is reading short meaningful phrases, not simply 'chunks' of every 3 or 4 words. Practice reading text divided into distinct pieces of information. Read text grouped into 'thought-units', and see ideas practically leap from the page into your mind.Quick Results
You will probably be surprised how soon you'll see results. You won't just find a list of techniques about how to read faster; you'll start to read faster immediately, with specially formatted exercises that make it easy to understand whole groups of words at a time.Step-by-Step Progress
You will advance through a series of levels, steadily progressing towards reading word-groups on your own. Each level is carefully designed to steadily give you less assistance, advancing you towards the goal of using this skill in your normal reading.Common Sense Exercises
If you're skeptical, then you've probably tried other 'speed reading' courses. But this is not about 'eye-widening', or 'finger waving', or waiting for comprehension to 'catch up' with your 'speed reading'. Nor is this skimming, scanning, or ignoring 'unimportant' words. This is simply a convenient way to practice how fast readers read.Fun To Practice
Of course all skills require practice, but this practice is closer to fun than work. Enjoy reading popular classics while the specially formatted text makes it easy to see whole ideas at each glance. All books are divided into short segments so that you receive constant feedback of your progress every few minutes.See For Yourself
Have reading skills to be proud of, and truly experience text, rather than just listen to it. Read faster. Understand more.If you have too much reading to keep up with, or if you would simply like to enjoy a good book in a reasonable amount of time, then you must try this. The time invested to acquire this skill will be returned to you with every book you read.
Learning To Learn Faster Part II
The Backstory:
In my last blog, we got a chance to meet learning expert Jim Kwik and explored some of the ideas behind SuperheroYou, which is the Kwik-founded open-source community/university devoted to accelerated learning and brain optimization.
In May of this year, Kwik and SuperheroYou teamed up with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and the Downtown Vegas project to host a super-learning super-summit in, of course, downtown Las Vegas. It was a best-of-the-best gathering. Kwik sought out an assembled a collection of extraordinary minds to share their high performance learning hacks.
In the last post, we covered a small example of exactly this kind of brain optimizing hack: novelty. Our brains crave novelty. As a result, if you are trying to remember where you put your car keys, having an image of them 60 feet tall and dressed in drag helps. Mental exaggeration is a simple learning hack—a way of using the brain’s fundamental attraction to novelty as a way to optimize memory.
In this post, we’re going to examine a couple of similar tricks, one as a way to hack speed reading; the second as a way to accelerate problem solving, but before we can get into those details, first the “fish story.”
Hacking Reading
The fish story goes like this: A while back, Jim Kwik bumped into one of his old speed reading students (again, for more on Kwik and his reading talents, see my previous post) who told him he had just reread one of his favorite books using Kwik’s techniques.
The book in question was Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea. What had surprised the student the second time through was the vividness of the experience .
“He said he could feel the hot sun beating down on his shoulders as he read,” explains Kwik. “That he could actually hear the sound of the waves crash. It was amazing, he loved the whole book, except what he really couldn’t deal with was the smell of the fish.”
Where this fish smell comes from and what it has to do with accelerated learning is where this fish story gets interesting—but before we can get there we have to first cover a few speed reading techniques.
Over the course of his career, Kwik has discovered a few key reasons why most people read slowly, with back-skipping (re-reading passages over and again) and lack of focus among the most common.
The easiest way to solve these problems? Use a visual pacer. Your finger, a pencil, a computer mouse, whatever. This works so well because of another fundamental neuronal process: our eyes are attracted to motion.
We evolved in a world when a tiny rustle in the bush could have meant predator or could have been prey, but either way it paid to pay attention. So we do. We can’t help it. Which is why simply the use of a visual pacer improves reading speeds by 25 percent.
But Kwik tells his students to either use their left finger for that pacer; or hold that pacer (i.e. a pencil) with their left hand—and that’s where this story gets interesting.
Here’s why: The left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain. While brain function is not evenly lateralized, the right side is far more creative than the left. When we control a pacer with our left hand, we are actively engaging these same creative process. It happens subconsciously, it happens automatically, but by engaging the right side of the brain we’re firing up the imagination which, in turn, fires us sense memory—which is why that student smelled fish.
But here’s the thing—the more we engage imagination to process information, the more vivid the real time experience of that information, and the much more likely we’re able to recall that data later.
Simply by using our left finger as a visual pacer we are using the brain’s own inner workings to our advantage. In a very real sense, we’re hacking the subconscious with the subconscious—and the result is extreme vivid and detailed recall.
In my last blog, we got a chance to meet learning expert Jim Kwik and explored some of the ideas behind SuperheroYou, which is the Kwik-founded open-source community/university devoted to accelerated learning and brain optimization.
In May of this year, Kwik and SuperheroYou teamed up with Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and the Downtown Vegas project to host a super-learning super-summit in, of course, downtown Las Vegas. It was a best-of-the-best gathering. Kwik sought out an assembled a collection of extraordinary minds to share their high performance learning hacks.
In the last post, we covered a small example of exactly this kind of brain optimizing hack: novelty. Our brains crave novelty. As a result, if you are trying to remember where you put your car keys, having an image of them 60 feet tall and dressed in drag helps. Mental exaggeration is a simple learning hack—a way of using the brain’s fundamental attraction to novelty as a way to optimize memory.
In this post, we’re going to examine a couple of similar tricks, one as a way to hack speed reading; the second as a way to accelerate problem solving, but before we can get into those details, first the “fish story.”
Hacking Reading
The fish story goes like this: A while back, Jim Kwik bumped into one of his old speed reading students (again, for more on Kwik and his reading talents, see my previous post) who told him he had just reread one of his favorite books using Kwik’s techniques.
The book in question was Hemingway’s classic The Old Man and the Sea. What had surprised the student the second time through was the vividness of the experience .
“He said he could feel the hot sun beating down on his shoulders as he read,” explains Kwik. “That he could actually hear the sound of the waves crash. It was amazing, he loved the whole book, except what he really couldn’t deal with was the smell of the fish.”
Where this fish smell comes from and what it has to do with accelerated learning is where this fish story gets interesting—but before we can get there we have to first cover a few speed reading techniques.
Over the course of his career, Kwik has discovered a few key reasons why most people read slowly, with back-skipping (re-reading passages over and again) and lack of focus among the most common.
The easiest way to solve these problems? Use a visual pacer. Your finger, a pencil, a computer mouse, whatever. This works so well because of another fundamental neuronal process: our eyes are attracted to motion.
We evolved in a world when a tiny rustle in the bush could have meant predator or could have been prey, but either way it paid to pay attention. So we do. We can’t help it. Which is why simply the use of a visual pacer improves reading speeds by 25 percent.
But Kwik tells his students to either use their left finger for that pacer; or hold that pacer (i.e. a pencil) with their left hand—and that’s where this story gets interesting.
Here’s why: The left side of the body is controlled by the right side of the brain. While brain function is not evenly lateralized, the right side is far more creative than the left. When we control a pacer with our left hand, we are actively engaging these same creative process. It happens subconsciously, it happens automatically, but by engaging the right side of the brain we’re firing up the imagination which, in turn, fires us sense memory—which is why that student smelled fish.
But here’s the thing—the more we engage imagination to process information, the more vivid the real time experience of that information, and the much more likely we’re able to recall that data later.
Simply by using our left finger as a visual pacer we are using the brain’s own inner workings to our advantage. In a very real sense, we’re hacking the subconscious with the subconscious—and the result is extreme vivid and detailed recall.
