RE: Problems retaining what I study

I think everyone can sympathize with you (except for maybe that guy that won 50 Jeopardy shows in a row :-)

I find that what helps me the most is taking my own notes - for example, I'm going through the Sybex 10G OCP upgrade book right now and doing the same thing I did with all the 9i books - I read them and type notes at the same time. It helps with retention to filter things through your brain and process them enough to rewrite and organize in your own words and structure. Otherwise, I find that I can read something, actually saying the words to myself in my mind, but not really hearing/processing/comprehending them and when I get to the end of the paragraph I can't remember a single thing I just read. Taking notes is also very helpful for the exams - you can scan them quickly right before your exam, since they only contain the condensed highlights from the book and things that you didn't already know. This helps to at least retain it long enough for the exam, but I still forget a lot of it after a few weeks or months of not using it.

This goes back to the debate from last week regarding the value of certification - again, I feel like even though I forget a lot of the detail, it is still helpful to at least be familiar with those concepts so you can be prepared to take advantage of them when the opportunity comes up - and then just go back to your notes, or the current documentation when you need the details again.

Regards,
Brandon

-----Original Message-----

From: oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org
[mailto:oracle-l-bounce_at_freelists.org]On Behalf Of Ram K Sent: Friday, August 19, 2005 1:21 AM
To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
Subject: Problems retaining what I study

Recently this happened to me. I studied a good Oracle book by an author some months ago. It was a tough read for me, took several weeks to study, understand some important parts of the book.    

I had emailed several queries to the author. He had responded to me with his answers after 3 months. To my surprise, I found out that I had forgotten my own questions to the extent that I could not even understand them on the first pass in the response email. They looked too technical for me. I spent quite a bit of time just on the replies and my questions and then I was able to understand most of the questions.    

How do people who read lots of technical stuff remember and retain what they read?    

How many hours of reading do other DBAs put in per week and do others have problems retaining what they read?     

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Thanks,
Ram.
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http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Fri Aug 19 2005 - 10:51:43 CDT