Why Speed Reading Does Not Work, and in
Fact is not Needed-
There are a lot of books and trainers around who talk about speed reading, promising inexperienced readers a never
before and almost magical jump in their reading abilities.
However, in our experience of training thousands of students, we have seen the futility of speed reading techniques. The fact that the ‘magic’ wears off the moment
you try to read anything outside the provided exercises has been a constant in our years of experience of having trained
students. In fact, the moment a ‘speed reading trained student is confronted with something remotely heavy, the speed reading techniques stop working.
The basic reason why these reading techniques do not work under the examination reading conditions is that these
techniques are designed for sparse and easy reading materials. (Speed reading is typically defined for ordinary, non technical matter). On the contrary, the passages and
extracts used in the CAT, XLRI and other top management entrance exams are dense in terms of their content. They contain too much information and any attempt at skimming and scanning (which are recommended speed reading techniques) result in a loss of comprehension Sometimes, missing on a crucial sentence might just end up making you lose your connection with the author totally.
Furthermore, at what speed (in words per minute) do you think you need to read in order to do well in the RC section? Take a guess… 400, 500, 700, or even more???.
Incidentally, these are the kinds of reading speeds that speed reading books promise you that they will help you achieve.
Now consider this fact. A typical CAT passage is anywhere between 800 to 1200 words. The questions further form approximately 300 to 500 words. This means
that in order to read a passage and solve the questions, all you need to do is read and completely understand anywhere
between 1100 to 1700 words. CAT 2005 had 3 passages
constituting 20 marks in all, and students had approximately
20 to 22 minutes to solve the same. A total of 3073 words
translates to a ridiculous reading speed requirement of
139.68 words per minute if you want to solve all the three
passages. If you add the fact that most successful CAT
aspirants solved only two out of the three passages, the
statistic becomes even more ridiculous—especially in the
light of the tall claims of 600 to 800 words per minute that
these speed reading trainers and books claim that they can
help a student achieve. Looking at it from another angle-
if someone was able to achieve these reading speeds he/she
should have been able to complete the 20 marks in the RC section in CAT in about 5 minutes flat!!
