The learning methods and training details of Harvard's top students

Chapter 4 is being read, allowing you to freely absorb the fountain of wisdom (2)
When we read, we must both read and not read.To read something is to refer to the wisdom and ideas of others; to not read something is to develop one's own mind, think independently, and cultivate a creative spirit.Just reading blindly will be like what Schopenhauer said: "Thoughts are led away by others with a belt." Schopenhauer also emphasized: "As far as our reading is concerned, the art of reading and not reading is very important. The reason is very simple: first, we need time to think, and blindly reading deprives independent thinking; second, there is indeed a difference between good and bad books, valuable and worthless, and we must make a choice.

Still Schopenhauer's words: "One condition for being friends with good books is not to read bad books, because life is short and time and energy are limited." The implication is that the limited time and energy should be used to read bad books If you read a good book, there will be no gaps at all.

So, how can we make friends with good books?
Taking literary books as an example, Schopenhauer distinguishes them in this way: in every era, there are two kinds of literature, parallel to each other, without interfering with each other: one is true, and the other seems to be true and false.The former grew into an everlasting literature.Propelled by those who were born for science or poetry, it went its way solemnly and quietly, but very slowly, hardly a dozen works were produced in Europe every hundred years, and yet they remained forever.The latter is promoted by those who live on science or poetry, and is developing rapidly under the clamor of their colleagues. Thousands of works are provided to the market every year, but few are handed down.

To be friends with good books, you should read more classic works, so as to promote your growth and enrich your knowledge.Of course, reading cannot be forced, even if it is a first-class good book, if you feel dizzy, dozed off after reading it, and you can’t read it even if you bite the bullet, and you feel unacceptable, then put it down for a while and don’t read it.

A person who likes to read should be a good "book hunter" at the same time, cut off those worthless and outdated books, leaving only the first-class high-quality goods to study carefully, in this way, we will also gain inspiration from reading. Our unexpected return.

[Easy interaction]

1. Think about it, do you often read classics?
2. If you had a very good classic and a popular book, which one would you choose as your reading object?

3. List the famous works and their authors that you have read, and make a detailed reading plan for yourself.

【Parent-child total product】

How to choose good books?You may wish to learn from the experience of the following famous experts.

(1) Look at the beginning and the end.Find out what's coming.The first page or two may be interesting and readable if new questions are raised.If there is indeed a new situation in the last few paragraphs, or it may be unexpected, you should read it carefully.

(2) Read backwards.There are often some filler essays in books and periodicals, generally less than a thousand words. "Small but complete".These essays can be described as short and concise, not to be missed.

(3) Use the nose to smell while reading, and stop if you smell something bad.If you boast of being "little famous" or unnecessarily repeat yourself as a young female writer in the article, you should read it carefully.

(4) There are many situations when encountering books that cannot be read.One is my lack of academic ability, the book is indeed brilliant.The second is that the author "speculates" things that he doesn't understand, using expressions that everyone doesn't understand, in order to scare people, and don't read such books to avoid being fooled.

(5) Novel novels may not have wonderful chapters, and the chapters are moving back and forth, but there are also ordinary chapters and even failures.If you read something that doesn't make sense or feels uncomfortable, you can pause it, insert a bookmark, skip it and continue reading.After reading the whole book, go back and read the "paused" place to judge whether it is a failure or a brilliant move.

(6) Pay attention to the works of newcomers.A newcomer can stand out in today's environment and must have strength, which cannot be ignored.

【Harvard view】

The lightest ink is better than the best memory
Dr. Harvard and the famous economist Samuel said when talking about his learning method: "Taking notes while reading has become my habit."

People who have made great achievements in their studies often have a good habit of taking notes frequently while reading.Liang Sicheng, Zhao Yuanren and other Harvard top students are like this.

As we all know, the difficult process of proving Fermat's last theorem fully demonstrates the importance of taking reading notes.There are three major problems in modern mathematics, they are: four-color map problem, Fermat's last theorem and Goldbach's conjecture.The study of Fermat's last theorem has driven the development of mathematics, and was praised by the great mathematician Hilbert as "a hen that can lay golden eggs".

Fermat was a French mathematician who studied indefinite equations when he read Diophantus' Arithmetic in his thirties.He wrote in Latin in the margin of this "Arithmetic": "The cube of any number cannot be decomposed into the sum of the cubes of two numbers. The fourth power of any number cannot be decomposed into the [-]th power of two numbers." sum of powers; in general, it is impossible to divide a power higher than a power of two into the sum of two powers of the same power. I have found a beautiful proof of this assertion, but the space here is too small to fit. "

After Fermat's death, in 1670, his son published this page of notes, and people knew about this problem, and called this theorem Fermat's last theorem.However, due to "unable to write down", there is no written record of the proof of this great theorem. As a result, the proof of Fermat's last theorem has made many famous mathematicians in the world exhausted, and some even exhausted their entire lives until 300, more than 1995 years later. , the 43-year-old British mathematician Wells proved it, which is considered "the most significant mathematical achievement in the 20th century". For this, Wells won the 1995-1996 Wolf Prize in Mathematics.

It can be seen how important it is to take reading notes.If Fermat had recorded his "wonderful demonstration" at that time, it would have saved future generations a lot of trouble.

Learning by memorization alone may be incomplete, inaccurate, and unreliable.Even for people with very good memories, it is impossible to carry out a large number of long-term memories.Taking notes can help memory and play a role in extending the storage of information.It is better than pure reading, because strengthening the response can strengthen the acceptance, and strengthening the corresponding performance can strengthen the impression.In general, active practice is always better than observation, and this is confirmed by the law of active response.The process of writing down your feelings, experiences or questions in your notes is the process of strengthening understanding, strengthening impression and strengthening memory.

Harvard psychology experts once did such an experiment: they let A and B, who are basically identical in intelligence, attend a class together, A takes notes, B does not, and the teacher assesses them after a period of time after the lecture.As a result, student A gave a very good answer, while student B was full of loopholes.When the reporter interviewed them, A said that those questions seemed to be done by him just now; B said that he knew very well when he was listening to the lectures, but he was very uneasy when doing the questions.It can be seen that the saying "a good memory is not as good as a bad pen" is very reasonable.Because students use their hands, brain, and eyes together when taking notes, they are highly concentrated and have a deep impression on the notes they have made.

Although the current technology continues to develop, copiers can replace hand-copying, which can save a lot of time and keep the truth, but the advantage of using the brain for hand-copying cannot be replaced by any modern machine, just as the tape recorder can replace listening to lectures. Records, but still need to be summarized and digested to become the same as the knowledge you have mastered.

Real learning should be happy learning, the key lies in whether we have mastered the correct method.As long as we master the correct method of reading, then we will no longer regard reading as a headache and drudgery, and our knowledge will continue to be enriched in reading.

[Easy interaction]

1. Through reading, how do you think the proof of Fermat's Great Law inspires your study?
2. In the usual study process, do you have a good habit of taking reading notes?

3. Think about it, what other good reading methods do you think?

【Parent-child total product】

After reading an article or a book, we should write reading notes according to different situations.Commonly used forms are:
(1) Outline style.The purpose is to remember the main content of the book.Identify major and minor content by writing a content outline.

(2) Excerpt type.Mainly to accumulate vocabulary and sentences.You can extract beautiful words, wonderful sentences, and paragraphs for future familiarity, recitation, and use.

(3) imitation type.In order to apply what you have learned, you can imitate the excerpted wonderful sentences and imitate the paragraphs to learn how to use them.

(4) Commentary style.It is mainly to comment on the characters and events in the readings to affirm their ideological and artistic value.Can be divided into title, main content, comments.

(5) Experience style.In order to write down what you feel the most, write down what books you have read, which contents in the book you have been educated the most, and write down your own feelings in contact with reality, that is, random feelings.

(6) Doubtful style.It is mainly to record the difficult problems encountered in the reading, and make notes while reading, and then ask and ask for advice separately until you understand it.

(7) Abbreviated form.In order to remember the outline of the story, after reading a long article, you can grasp the main content and abbreviate it into a short article.

(End of this chapter)