Reading-Can't focus!

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Oblivion

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I find myself not paying attention to what I'm reading. This happens not only when I'm reading passages, but also when I read novels, or articles for my courses. I'd start out reading and interpreting, but after a short while, I find myself just blanking out, skimming over the words, and not absorbing what I'm reading. After the paragraph, I'm usually asking myself "what exactly did I just read?"

I've tried drinking tea, underlining important things to keep my mind focused, forcing myself to take an interest in the material etc, but often still find myself losing focus. Rarely, it may be because I can't grasp the author's flow of logic, but I don't think this is the main cause.

I've pinpointed this as the conundrum I face when I read just about anything and need to correct it regardless of VR. I'm just wondering if anyone else had this problem and if you guys had any suggestions to overcome it.

Thanks

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Yep that happens to me sometimes, I can read an entire page and not remember anything I read in that specific page 1 min later.
Then I reread the whole page!! while trying to stay focused!
I take notes if it's really important and try to explain the material to myself , I try to "translate" whatever the author is saying to my everyday language. (and then memorize it, if necessary.)
 
Try reading some scientific journals or philosphy articles to get a feel for reading you are unfamiliar with. Spend a lot of time trying to comb through the dense material, then as you get better, you ability to focus in verbal might improve. I had the same problem at the beginning of the summer while studying, however, by the end I had improved about 5 points up from the very first EK verbal test I did.
 
practice, practice, practice...

also, a trick that I've used that helped me out to get the hang of things was to read faster when I saw that my mind was starting to wander.
Once you start reading faster you concentrate on what you're reading a lot more :thumbup: that usually at least focuses you back on the task at hand.

Good luck guys, but concentration on passages does get better with practice :)
 
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I do that all the time. It happens even when I'm concentrating, because then I concentrate on the concentrating, as opposed to the content. It also happens when, for whatever reason, I start thinking about something else, while continuing to read.

My advice would be to read everything a couple of times through at least, that'll reduce the chance of you missing things. Make sure at the end of each paragraph, you know what you just talked about, then you don't have to read the whole passage again, just that paragraph.

Yeah.. not the best "strategy", but like I said, concentrating "harder" doesn't really help (imo), neither does mouthing out the words.
 
Read slower and focus on the words that you're reading. If you get side - tracked just stop, go back to the last point you remember, and start over. It's something that will take time to get better at, but it is possible.
 
I find that instead of reading slower, reading as fast as you can comprehend things is better. When you read slower, your mind is idling most of the time, and you'll get bored and start to daydream. The best way (and this has been shown in psychological studies) is to read at a fast speed AND to ask yourself questions about what you're reading. Eg. for a passage on hormones, you should be asking yourself "what do I need to understand in this?" and "which hormones are produced where?" or "what are the differences between steroid and peptide based hormones?"

Speeding up your reading helps you focus. Asking yourself questions will help you remember.
 
I find that instead of reading slower, reading as fast as you can comprehend things is better. When you read slower, your mind is idling most of the time, and you'll get bored and start to daydream. The best way (and this has been shown in psychological studies) is to read at a fast speed AND to ask yourself questions about what you're reading. Eg. for a passage on hormones, you should be asking yourself "what do I need to understand in this?" and "which hormones are produced where?" or "what are the differences between steroid and peptide based hormones?"

Speeding up your reading helps you focus. Asking yourself questions will help you remember.

:thumbup: exactly... just try yourself next time you are reading a verbal passage and your mind starts to wander... SPEED UP. your mind will need to concentrate on what you're reading, whereas when you are going at a regular or slower pace you might switch in to auto-pilot without even knowing it
 
What works for me, but which I do not necessarily recommend, is reading in public places. I've found that it helps to have background white noise to filter out. I studied in Panera, Barnes and Noble, and during football season, sports bars.
 
I completely agree with the suggestion about reading faster. A Cognitive Strategies professor that I have right now said a couple of weeks ago that people that start wandering off while they read or listen to lectures (or do anything) is because your brain still has plenty of space to process even more information than what is going into your head at that point in time. In other words, if you are wandering off while doing MCAT passages, READ FASTER, because your brain needs more information to stay occupied and focus. Practice reading faster, I have tried it and belive me it keeps me more concentrated. So the moral is, keep your brain busier so that you don't have space to wander off.

Good luck!
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll report back in a few months with the results. :D
 
Another common possibility is unfamiliar words/ phrases throwing you off. Make sure you either brush up on your vocab, or learn to guess/ignore them.
 
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