Study at Home / Working

Reading everything is not the strategy

Assessment tells you what the course actually requires.

Courses supply more material than can be thoroughly engaged with by somebody with limited hours, and the instinct is to read it all and then attempt the work. That order exhausts the available time before anything is produced.

Reading the assessment first changes what the reading is for. It converts a large undifferentiated body of material into a search for what is needed, which is faster, better retained because it has a purpose, and produces work sooner.

This is not the same as ignoring anything not directly assessed. It is a sequencing decision: engage with the material in service of producing something, and the broader reading happens around it rather than before it.

The corollary is starting the assessment far earlier than feels appropriate. Attempting it while under-prepared reveals precisely which parts of the material are needed, which is information the reading could not have provided.

There is one thing a study group provides that nothing else does, which is a deadline that involves another person. Agreeing to send somebody a draft by Thursday is a weak obligation and it is stronger than any private intention, and it is the mechanism doing most of the work in these arrangements.