So, if you're anything like me, you've probably spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to study and pass your exams. Whether it's for school, an upcoming test, or even just learning a new skill for your side hustle. And the usual advice that we get like rereading, highlighting, taking notes, and drawing concept maps, they don't really help us, right?
Because you still forget most of what you studied. So, you're feeling overwhelmed. And worst of all, it feels like you're putting in all these effort, but not seeing any results.
But what if there's a faster and more effective way to study? one that helps you to actually learn and avoid forgetting what you just studied. And that's where this book comes in.
Ultralearning by Scott Young. And in this video, I'm going to share with you tips from the book that'll hopefully help you learn much faster, remember more, and pass your exams. Let's get into it.
When I was in school, people would always tell me what to study, like read this book, go through this material, and memorize these notes. And whenever I ask someone for advice, I usually get a list of resources, but never on the how to actually study them. So obviously that's what I focused on, like figuring out the right resources and picking the best books.
And I thought that if I just had the right materials, I'd be able to pass all of my exams. And to be fair, that approach kind of worked. But everything changed when I got into med school because suddenly there was a lot more information that you have to know in a short amount of time.
And it felt like drinking from a fire hose. And so I figured maybe I just had to study harder, study longer hours, read more pages. And I told myself that maybe pouring more time and effort would solve the problem.
But then I started to realize something that some of the students who were getting better grades than me were using the exact same books and materials that I was using. And that's when it finally clicked for me. Like it wasn't about what they were studying.
It was about how they were studying. And so I started looking into it. I read a few books about how to study more effectively.
I tried out different study techniques, active versus passive. And over time it started to change. It's like my grades massively improved, but more than that, I didn't feel as burned out.
I had more energy, more time to take care of myself, go to the gym, spend time with my family and my partner back then, who is now my wife. And so, I realized that this is what it meant to actually study smarter and not just harder. And it turns out there's actually a name for that.
It's called metalarning. It's basically learning how to learn. And the book says that this is the first thing that you should do like when you're studying for an exam or trying to learn a new skill.
And I'm going to read a quote from the book and it says in discussing the principles of ultralearning metalarning comes first understanding how a subject breaks down into different elements and seeing how others have learned it previously thus providing an advantageous starting point. In this case metalarning means learning about learning. And it's kind of like that quote from Abraham Lincoln and it says, "Give me 6 hours to chop down a tree and I'll spend the first four sharpening the axe.
" And it's the same idea, right? If you take a bit of time up front to figure out the best way to study, everything else becomes much easier and you'll learn better and much faster. So now, before I dive into learning anything new, I always stop and ask myself, what's the quickest and most effective way to learn this?
because how you study is just as important, if not more important, than what you study. Now, let's say that you wanted to learn how to speak Japanese fluently in just one month. And let's say that money is not a problem and that your only goal is to speak Japanese fluently in just one month.
Now, imagine you have three options. The first is you could start by watching YouTube videos about grammar and pronunciation. Or the second one is you can download Dualingo and go through all of the lessons.
And the third one is you could fly to Japan and just starting talking to people even if you're stumbling through every sentence at first. Which one do you think will have the highest probability that you achieve your goal in one month? The last one sounds the most intense, but it's probably the fastest way to get fluent.
Why? Because you are learning in the same context where you'll actually use the skill of speaking Japanese. And this is what the book calls as directness.
And I'll read a quote from the book and it says, "Directness is the idea of learning being tied closely to the situation or context that you want to use it in. We want to speak a language but try to learn mostly by playing on fun apps rather than conversing with actual people. We want to work on collaborative professional programs but mostly code scripts in isolation.
We want to become great speakers so we buy a book on communication rather than practice presenting. In all of these cases, the problem is the same. Directly learning the thing we want feels too uncomfortable, boring or frustrating.
So we settle for some book, lecture or app, hoping it will eventually make us better at the real thing. When we learn new things, therefore, we should always strive to tie them directly to the context we want to use them in. Given the well doumented difficulty with indirect forms of learning, why are they still the default both in schools and in many failed attempts at self-education?
The answer is that learning directly is hard. It's often more frustrating, challenging, and intense than reading a book or sitting through a lecture. But this very difficulty creates a potent source of competitive advantage for any wouldbe ultrarner.
If you're willing to apply tactics that exploit directness despite these difficulties, you will end up learning much more effectively. And it's kind of learning how to ride a bike, right? Like if you want to ride a bike, you don't read a 100page book on how to ride a bike.
You buy a bike and you get on the bike and you start learning how to pedal the bike and you figure it out by going straight ahead and doing the thing. And the same goes for getting fit. You don't get a six-pack from reading articles about abs.
Like you hit the gym and you do the reps. And when it comes to exams is the same idea. Like if your test is made up of multiple choice questions, the best way to prepare is by actually answering multiple choice questions because that's what you'll be doing on the day of the exam.
So that's what you should be practicing. It's not that other methods like taking notes or drawing concept maps are bad because they're not. I mean, they can be really helpful, especially when you're just trying to wrap your head around something new, like during your years of medical school, for example.
But when you have a big exam coming up, like a lensure examination, which will determine whether you will get to practice your profession or not, you need to focus on what will actually help you perform better on that exam. Because the exam isn't going to ask you to draw a concept map or summarize a chapter, right? It's going to give you four options and it's going to ask you to pick the right one.
So, if you want to get better at that, you need to practice doing exactly that. Which leads us to tip number three. This last tip is something a lot of students already know on some level, but most don't actually do it.
And one of the main reasons is that we tend to judge how well we're learning based on how studying feels at the moment. If something feels easy, like rereading notes or highlighting a textbook, we assume that we're understanding it, like we're we're really getting it and it feels smooth, you know, so we think that it's working that. But on the other hand, if a study method feels hard, like doing flashcards or practice tests, we we often avoid it because it feels frustrating and slow and that makes us think that we're not learning anything.
But the truth is, just because something feels easy doesn't mean that it's effective. And just because something feels hard doesn't mean that it's not actually working. In fact, it's the other way around.
Because reading and watching videos, they are ways of putting information into our brain. But to actually learn and remember that information, it comes from taking that information out of our brains, which is basically what active recall is. And that's why things like doing practice tests or flashcards or even explaining a topic to someone else without looking at your notes.
Of course, they can be more useful even if they feel much harder than like say reading your notes or watching lecture videos. So if a study technique feels a bit uncomfortable like doing practices, it might actually be doing you more good than you think. So we basically spent this whole video talking about how to learn quickly and so that you can pass your exams.
And if you like this video, you would love this video over here, which is where I talk about how I build good study habits, which help me get high scores in my exams. So, click on that video if you're interested. And thank you so much for watching and see you later.
Bye.
