readandlearn
New Member
Hi Everyone, I am happy to be part of an online readers group.
While I was growing up, I wasn't really interested in reading books outside of school. Even in high school, I do not remember picking up a book from the library to read for pleasure - it was always a strenuous thing to do so that I could do the English assignments. In my senior year of high school, I had a great English teacher and I started loving Shakespeare after taking his class. In the summer following the senior year, I read The Merchant of Venice for fun. As far as I can recall, it was the first time, I really wanted to read a book for fun.
During college, I majored in the sciences, so didn't really have to take many English/humanities/arts classes, so there wasn't much school related reading, but I would read here and there outside of class, but nothing solid. Meaning I wouldn't really pick up a book and read the whole thing; I would start it, but soon I would loose interest and forgot about the book.
Soon after college, I was studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) and a third of one's score on MCAT is based on a Verbal Reasoning section, which tests reading comprehension. When I was taking the practice exams, the verbal section was the one that I struggled the most with. I searched countless forums for advise on improving verbal score and the conclusion was to just take practice exams. I also found out that a lot of students who grew up with English as a second language had trouble with the verbal section of the MCAT. It turns out that those who have grown up reading (not just school reading, but even outside of school) tend to do much better on the verbal section. Also, some of the MCAT prep books kept saying that reading will not help on the verbal section of the MCAT unless one had 3-4 years of time before taking the MCAT.
There are also statistics out there that students who have majored in humanities and go to medical school, tend to do better in medical school that students who majored in sciences. That didn't make sense to me initially - but now I think I understand it. The difference is that humanities majors do a significantly more amount of reading that science majors.
And I think this is also true for learning in general. I want to make reading a significant part of my life and I am here so that I can learn from other readers and get ideas.
While I was growing up, I wasn't really interested in reading books outside of school. Even in high school, I do not remember picking up a book from the library to read for pleasure - it was always a strenuous thing to do so that I could do the English assignments. In my senior year of high school, I had a great English teacher and I started loving Shakespeare after taking his class. In the summer following the senior year, I read The Merchant of Venice for fun. As far as I can recall, it was the first time, I really wanted to read a book for fun.
During college, I majored in the sciences, so didn't really have to take many English/humanities/arts classes, so there wasn't much school related reading, but I would read here and there outside of class, but nothing solid. Meaning I wouldn't really pick up a book and read the whole thing; I would start it, but soon I would loose interest and forgot about the book.
Soon after college, I was studying for the MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) and a third of one's score on MCAT is based on a Verbal Reasoning section, which tests reading comprehension. When I was taking the practice exams, the verbal section was the one that I struggled the most with. I searched countless forums for advise on improving verbal score and the conclusion was to just take practice exams. I also found out that a lot of students who grew up with English as a second language had trouble with the verbal section of the MCAT. It turns out that those who have grown up reading (not just school reading, but even outside of school) tend to do much better on the verbal section. Also, some of the MCAT prep books kept saying that reading will not help on the verbal section of the MCAT unless one had 3-4 years of time before taking the MCAT.
There are also statistics out there that students who have majored in humanities and go to medical school, tend to do better in medical school that students who majored in sciences. That didn't make sense to me initially - but now I think I understand it. The difference is that humanities majors do a significantly more amount of reading that science majors.
And I think this is also true for learning in general. I want to make reading a significant part of my life and I am here so that I can learn from other readers and get ideas.
