A SKING Q UESTIONS , G ETTING A NSWERS

The process of asking questions to find out, first, what you already know, and second, what you still need to learn, is similar. You might have to ask more than one question as you find your way to the knowledge the writer is trying to give you. Here’s a sequence you can go through to find out what you don’t know and then ask questions and get answers. If you have been reading a book, the text you’ll go back to for answers is the book; if you listened to a lecture, your “text” is your notes or audiotape of the lecture.

1. Draw a picture and write down the order. 2. Is this perfectly clear? Where are the gaps?

3. Ask yourself a question that will help fill in the gap.

4. Go back to your text to find the answer. Use the parts of your

picture or outline that are clear to help you see where in the text you should look for the answer. Look in the sections of your text that come right after the last clear piece of your picture or outline.

5. Read the relevant part of the text. Don’t try to re-read the whole

chapter or go over the whole lecture; you’re just looking for one little piece of information, the answer to your question. Take it in small chunks.

6. If you don’t have an answer, re-read the same section to try again. 7. If you still don’t have an answer, read the parts that come just

before and just after what you were reading. Repeat this process until you find the answer to your question.

8. Put this new piece of information into your picture and order. Is

the picture clear now? Is the order clear?

9. Keep going back and forth between your study aids and the text

until your picture and order are perfectly clear, and you have no questions left.

Now you’ve really learned something! You have a clear picture of the main idea, and you know all the steps it takes to get there. But notice that this clear picture and order don’t come out all at once. You have to take

Here’s an example of how you use what you know to help you create questions: Suppose you had to fill in the blank in the following sentence:

When you don’t know something, your brain rushes to _____e it has stored ideas on a similar topic.

In order to figure out what word should go in the blank, you should go through the following process:

First ask yourself, “What do I know for sure about the sentence? “ Your responses might be:

• I know that the sentence is about recognizing when I don’t know something.

• I know that it’s about the brain moving in some way. • I know that there’s a storing place in my brain.

• I know that the missing word connects the brain moving to the storage place.

• I know that the missing word ends with e.

Then ask yourself, “What kind of word would connect the brain rushing and the storage place?” The word must have something to do with direction. You make up more questions by connecting the words you know that have to do with direction to the sentence:

• Is the word over? Over doesn’t end with the letter e.

• Is it here? That’s a direction word that ends in e, but here doesn’t make sense in this sentence. Filling in that word doesn’t give you a clear picture and a clear sense of order.

• You reject there for the same reason. The only word that really works in the sentence—that gives a clear picture and order—is

where.

This was a simple example, but it shows you how to use what you already know to arrive at the answers to the questions about what you don’t know.

Choose one paragraph from a book you are studying now. Write down the following in your notebook, or record it onto your audiotape:

• Identify what you know for sure by drawing a picture and writing down the order.

• Find what you don’t know. • Ask questions.

• Go through the steps listed above to find the answers. • Write or record additional questions as they come to mind.

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The questions that count most are your questions. You get more out of studying; you become more involved, enjoy it more, it “sticks” more, when you make:

• Your own observations of what you know • Your own connections of new material to old

• Your own questions and then find your own answers!

Often, the search for answers leads to more questions. And the more questions you ask, the clearer you’re making your answers.

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You’re taking control of your own learning when you: • Recognize what you know

• Recognize what you don’t know

• Create questions to make the pictures in your head and the order of events clear

• Discover answers to your questions

• Realize when and how to question what you’ve studied

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