Should I be spending time writing notes?

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Nadia222: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 78; Joined: Sun Sep 15, 2013 8:38 am; Thanked: 8 times; Followed by:6 members

Should I be spending time writing notes?

by Nadia222 » Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:22 am

I am doing the 60 day study plan to take my GMAT in November for the January application deadline.

With work and other oligations, I have fallen 3 days behind, but I plan to catch up fully this

weekend. My issue is that I think I am falling behind due to writing notes. I think I may just start

highligting my books in an effort to save time, so that I can keep up with the daily assignments.

Do you think I should continue to take notes?

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Source: Beat The GMAT — The 60-Day GMAT Study Guide | Thu Sep 26, 2013 6:22 am

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Mike@Magoosh: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 768; Joined: Wed Dec 28, 2011 4:18 pm; Location: Berkeley, CA; Thanked: 387 times; Followed by:140 members

by Mike@Magoosh » Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:04 pm

Nadia222 wrote:I am doing the 60 day study plan to take my GMAT in November for the January application deadline.

With work and other oligations, I have fallen 3 days behind, but I plan to catch up fully this

weekend. My issue is that I think I am falling behind due to writing notes. I think I may just start

highligting my books in an effort to save time, so that I can keep up with the daily assignments.

Do you think I should continue to take notes?

Dear Nadia,

I understand that writing notes, especially formulating in your own words how to summarize, can be time-consuming, but you build many many more connections in your brain than when you simply highlight. In highlighting, you hand just draws a straight line across the text. In writing notes, all the circuits that translate ideas to words to letters to hand-motions are engaged --- that's a lot of subroutines humming along in your brain, and all that circuitry helps to support the memory circuitry. If you do the work of forcing yourself to formulate things in your own words, that force you to engage higher level brain operations, which makes it even more likely that you will remember. None of this happens when you simply highlight.

Does all this make sense?
Mike