Speed Reading

CFA General
#1

Just wondering if anyone has tried Speed Reading in conjunction with their CFA prep. Specifically, I’m looking to speed reading all of the CFAI materials in addition to using a provider like Schweser or Elan.

I’ve been using Photoreading (which I’ve used for a few years) and although I find it time efficient, it’s a bit difficult to get an in depth understanding of the material using it.

If anyone has successfully utilized any speed reading programs/techniques in their CFA prep, please let us know!

#2

Read for comprehension. Do lots of practice problems.

#3

I don’t think your answering his question.

#4

CFA material requires that you not only fully comprehend what they are saying but that you then consider the implications of what they are saying and how it fits in with other things that have been said…

I very much doubt that skimming the material would be a good use of your time…

#5

speedreading is fine for L1…but for L2 it is a bit more difficult but ofcourse not impossible if you are good at retaining knowledge.

#6

Speed reading doesn’t work for this kind of stuff, where a deep level of understanding is required. It only works for stuff like Dan Brown novels.

#7

Speedreading actually helped me in L1…somehow the discipline and energy behing speed reading actually balanced the boredom encountered in many parts of the material (FRA i am looking at you)…no harm in trying it out, you will notice soon enough if speedreading works for you or not.

#8

As long as you’re having comprehension, I think it is a good idea to speed read through many parts of your first read. Of course you shouldn’t confuse reading fast with not reading. Take your time to do every blue box, calculation and etc.

Most of the retention comes in the review stage, by doing many questions and re-reading whatever you need to understand the answers. If speed reading helps you in saving more time for that, I think it will be a valuable tool.

#9

I was in fact telling him not to speed read but rather read for full understanding and comprehension.

#10

The trick is to find a balance between speed and comprehension rather than sacrifice one for the other.

#11

You become a quicker reader when you’re more familiar with the material. When you don’t know anything about the subject matter and details are important, it’s best to read for comprehension.

I had taken a couple speed-reading classes a while ago and although they’re not universally helpful, they do make a big dfiference in things that aren’t really critical to understand the specific details. For me, those things include casual reading, general news articles, and sometimes sell-side reports when I don’t care about their projections and just want to understand bigger picture issues. One technique that may be helpful will be to read in “chunks” – i.e. rather than reading one word at a time, you try to let your eye grab half a line or an entire line at once, picking up certain key words, and letting your mind fill in the rest. I don’t know how else to explain this but this is a pretty fundamental tenet of speed-reading so you should be able to find something like this online. It’s just how I understand it.

For example, it enabled me to read this entire thread in about 15 seconds – granted, I don’t remember the specifics of who said what, but I retain the gist of what matters, i.e. that other people also seem to think that comprehension matters more than speed when studying CFA but ultimately you want to do whatever you’re most comfortable within your habits and time constranits.

#12

12 seconds.

#13

So what are your speed reading techniques? I usually just glance at the first half of the line, then the second half, about two lines at a time. Can pick up enough words to get the gist of things, but I would never do that with cfai textbooks

#14

i just read quickly and learn to filter useful stuff from crap.