the right word

the ˜right word

The ability to pick the right word or keyword is vital if you want to remember the most important information from any text.

Many students complain of having to spend so much time studying at home and yet, when they come to school or class the next day, it is all gone. Most of them lack the ability to pick out the right words as keywords and use them as ˜hooks for the rest of the information.

Generally, one could say that most people take too many notes and underline too many words in their books when they are studying. It may even be as much as 60 to 90 per cent too much. With so many words in the note pad, the revision of the material will also take a lot of time “ and it is not even guaranteed you will understand what you have written down. When you revise things you have learnt, you only need a very limited number of words, provided they are the right words!

However many facts you present, however hard you study, however many beautiful and instructive pictures you have, what it all comes down to is how much you have learned from it and how much can you remember.

In the next exercise you have a longer text to read. Turn to page 15 and read Chapter 5, ˜The Human Brain . Underline and/or write down in you note pad the words you consider to be keywords.