Being good at learning something is a skill or a virtue?

Learning is something which we do generally in life multiple times. We do learn lot of things and are interested in learning different things.However everyone has their own way to learn anything .Some are very good and learn things fast and some are a little slow.So this brings us to the question, is learning a skill or is it a virtue ?

I believe that learning fast is just a skill.Most of the people who learn something fast must be following some process by which they make learning anything easier and others.So if you ask me, how do you think one can read something understand it and then able to memorise it for a long time? Well, this is how they probably do it.

After just one reading of anything without any conscious effort of memorising, if we try to recollect what we have read, we get to grasp may be 5-10 % of the actual conept.But now if we try and read with an intent to know what are the main points we have missed, we would tend to grasp things better.

Now, the idea in here is to get something like an image of what ever we are reading, so that we are just placing the points in that mind image.Now for the 2nd time we could surely get a better idea that then earlier reading.So now you have got a rough idea of what the author is trying to say.Now we can make a note of what the key points are in the note are. Now if you can just remember this sequence and understand these points clearly, we can remember anything and also quite easily recollect.Doing something like this is important because you actually remember a lot lesser that what the author is trying to and and since you are trrying to pick up the key points you would remember it better.

Why is it revising in the middle a better way to learn? Here is a story.Two men joined a plantation where their work is to cut off trees and who ever cuts more would get more money.Both started by cutting 10 trees in 8 hours.Now slowy the 2nd person among them even though didnt spend any extra time was able to cut more trees than the 1st one. The 1st one gets motivated to do better but could not get good results like the 2nd one. So once these two guys met and the 1st one enquired about the 2nd one's secret and the 2nd one said this "After successfully cutting a tree I spend some 10 minues in sharpening the axe I have so that my efficiency is better". So we can infer that revising things while we are learning something, gives better results.

Multitasking helps you manage time better!

Time management, as these words clearly say managing the time available.In here,I have used the word available because time is something which is not what we have in abundance and it is extremely important that we use it in the best possible manner.Ok, now enough of stories and back to business.

From the time since I have started seriously into studies, I have found that I have a lot more to do than and the available time is less than that and I always wished that I had 26 hours a day which might help me finish everything.Apparently its an impossible one to be fulfilled, I have started experimenting with things,by which how this could be manage.I have clearly realised two things are very important for this to happen.

Firstly, its very important that you clearly know what you want to do in advance in a day and also in a position to decide which ones are of higher priority and which ones are a little lesser.So that you have a fare idea of what are the things which you must do for sure. Its would be even better if you could jot them down in brief.You know what are suppose to do in priority order things get a little easier.

Secondly the tougher one is executing part of your list.This is where most of the planning is involved.
The works that you do may be different and needs you hand,legs,mouth,brain to interfere at different times for them to get compelted.If we start doing things one by one it takes more time than usual so its important that we multi-task.The point which I have discussed just now seem trivial but the most  important one as far as managing time is concerned.Its important that you segregate roughly into physical and mental activites and multitask them.

Take for instance my typical day start in the evening, the moment I return home from office.I had this habbit of switching the TV and start flipping channels with the advent of rest before I start any work.This is something which I later felt is a problem. Instead of switching on the tv, I quickly change my dress into my track and start with a physical activity like pressing my dress for the next day,washing my under-pants,cleaning my room etc depending upon the list prepared. Having said that I do not do everything at once. I make sure that I do not take more than 20 minutes for this. I generally exercise in the evening everyday if I can because I comeback walking and so I do not need any warm up. Now I go for a bath and in 30 mintues I am fresh and can start some activity which needs more mental thinking and more of a sedentary work.

I never stretch typically for more than 1 hr and take 10 min break. In the mean time I continue my physical work which do not need any concentration and relaxs my brain quite a bit and since physial parts have been resting for 1 hr and so are quite ready for some physical work. But this we can work continuously.This is quite an advantage because sitting at a place for more than 1 hour causes lower back pain and also brings down the concentration and might feel sleepy at time and this list goes on by doing physical work in the middle it compements the body and brain quite well.

I wake up early in the morning and I brush and sh*t at a time which saves 10 minutes of my time and since my dress is pressed and kept ready,I dont need much time to prepare for going back to office in the morning.Since we just wake up early in the morning we might just take more time in the morning than what we actually take in the evening and so we can work better and do more in the available time.

Thus,mutitasking by switching between physical work and mental work parallelly and also if possible doing 2 physical works at a time leaves more time for us and hence better management.

Cheers!
 JKV

Lemon grass..

Hi,

I went to mumbai recently and was having tea at a road side shop and ordered for special tea.
that fellow was preparing tea and started adding ginger pieces which is quite normal.
And then I noticed him adding some grass and I was kind of surprised to see how can grass mix with tea.

My collegue said it is Lemon grass. (Nimma gaddi in telugu) and it adds a flavour to tea. And it really added taste indeed. Its was really nice.

Try adding some ginger and lemon grass when ever you get to find it. It is really nice!

Cheers!!

Here is another way to approximate squares.

Hi,

Some times we  need to an approximate range among which the square root of a number lies.
For that the conventional method is time consuming.

Here is an interesting way to find an approximate range of a square root.

For instance 4059. It does not look like a perfect square number, but let us see what is the nearest perfect square number to it.
4059
now divide 4059 as    40|59

the nearst perfect square to 40 is 36 which is 6^2

so put a six below 40 and for the 2 digits of 59 put a zero beside 6 which makes it 60

so 4059 is a number greater than 60^2 for sure now we can do 2 things.

Eiter follow approximation approach by checking 65^2 and 70^2.

Now 65^2 is 4225 and 70^2 is 4900. Ideally 4059 lies between 60^2 and 65^2 and from there we can very easily calculate the squares of 64,63,62,61(using 25-75 approach) on the fly and approximate to the extent required.

One more way is to divide 4059 with 60 which gives a number and now the nearest perfect square lies between these 2 numbers.

Hope this is useful.

Cheers!!

Here is a very good way to do approximations fast.

Hi,

We generally remember only a few convertions from fractions to percentages like 1/4 is 25% and
1/2 is 50 % like that. But in cases where we have to represent 45% in terms of percentages we put 45/100 and start simplifying.

Here is a very good way to make it simple with very little amount of data to remember.
With this we can easily convert percentages to fractions like,
How much is 3/17 (approximately) which is 17.4% and it takes no time.

How is this done?
Simple
3/17 is effectively 3*(1/17) now 1/17 value 5.8% and so 3/17 is 17.4.

How did you know that 1/17 is 5.8%? I have byhearted it!!

Here if we can byheart 1/2 to 1/20 then we can directly multiple with the values whatever we want,by this simplification needs very less steps.

In case any problem start like there is 45% profit we dont have to take number like 100 changed to 145 rather 17 changed to 20,which makes the simplifation easier.

Here is the list of all the fractions and its percentages from 1/2 to 1/20.

1/2  = 0.50 = 50%                                             1/11 = 0.09  = 9%
1/3  = 0.33 = 33%                                             1/12 = 0.083 =8.3%
1/4  = 0.25 =25%                                              1/13 = 0.076 =7.6%
1/5  =0.20  = 20%                                             1/14 =0.071 =7.1%
1/6  =0.16  =16%                                              1/15 =0.066 =6.6%
1/7  =0.14 =14%                                               1/16 =0.062 =6.2%
1/8  =0.12 =12%                                               1/17 =0.058 =5.8%
1/9  =0.11 =11%                                               1/18 =0.055 =5.5%
1/10 =0.10 =10%                                              1/19 =0.052 =5.2%
                                                                          1/20 =0.050 =5.0%

Cheers!

Calculating squares of numbers ending in 5.

How to calculate 95 square as 9025 just like that?
This is how you do it.

suppose a number ends with 5 and you want to calculate the square of a number,
we the truncate the number's last digit which is 5 and multiply the remaining part with the subsequent number and put a 25 at the end.

suppose you want to calculate 85^2

8*9 = 72.
now put 25 at the end 7225.
Its as simple as that!!

Cheers!!

The next part

hi,

Now for the next range of 75-125

In this case you take the number and 100.

Take 94 and 112 for instance.

94 -> 100-94 = -6

now add this -6 to 94 which give 88(1st 2 digits)
(-6)^2 = 36(last 2 digits)

hence 94^2 is 8836.(Check using calculator:))

Now for 112 the same process

112-100 = 12 add this to 112

112+12 =124

(12)^144 here 1 is the carry, so 112 ^ = 12544.

So this is how we can  calculate squares from 26-125 very easily.

Cheers!!

My 1st post!

Hi,

Since this is my 1st post, ill put something useful which is obviously not available everywhere.
How about Vedic mathematics?
We generally write competitive exams where we typically do lot of calculations so calculating squares is time consuming. Here is a technique to do it very easily. Once we master this, there is no need for pen and paper.
Pre requsite biheart upto 25^2 and we can calculate upto 125^2 very easily.

Between 25-75
x^2 =
step 1 : x -25  gives 1st 2 digits.
step 2: (50-x)^2 are last 2 digits.
since the number is greater than 25, (50-x)^2 is at max is 24^2 which we already bi-hearted

Take 37.

37-25 = 12 1st 2 digits
50 - 37 = (13)^2 = 169

Now we have to add this 1 as carry to 12 which makes it 13
Hence answer is 1369(Check this using a calculator if you are still in doubt)

Now 29^2
29 - 25 = 04
(50-29)^2 = (21)^2 = 441. 1st 4 is carry and hence 841.

Will give the details of 75-125 in my next post.

Cheers!