Analysis of “So How Many Hours Should I Study”

I must admit that Vikram(s) reply to this question have been insightful and interesting. Most of you properly understood the hidden question. Your comments ranged from dazzling to confusing to funny. Overall I was excited to read each of your comments and I thank you for your inputs.

As I am writing this blog and looking at my document, I feel that to do justice to the whole thread its better I break it into two parts.

In this part (PART 1) I will only restrict to giving you the idea behind the question and my few cents on the comments you have sent.

In the next part (PART 2), which I shall be able to post after about a week, I will introduce to you my Iron-Furnace analogy, which will give some methods to fine tune things so that you can study as many hours that can get your result.

However, I will start off by commenting on some important questions.

What has car driving got to do with your JEE prepration.

The main thing to notice is that Driving and Studying are essentially similar, because both of them are afterall, a human learning process. Extending further, both of these processes are governed and limited by how nature has designed our brain and how neurons learn.
I think this also answers what pkc has raised in his comments to my earlier post.

Where did the time-work maths Fail

Time work maths appears to have failed because most of you felt that the amount of learning would not be the same if one drives all of it in one days versus one learns a little for a number of days. So learning and recall is not same in “30min X 16days” and “8hours X 1 day”.

Quality of learning is a non-linear function that comprises of, but not limited by:

• Concentration Span
• Revision (Bharath Narayan’s comment)
• Self Confidence (subrahmanyam’s / Sai Krishna’s comment)
• Hours of Study
• Number of days studied (Ajit’s comment)
• Frame of mind
• + many more such factors

The learning equation is much more complicated and hence please observe for a moment “so how many hours should I study” is pretty much a shallow question to ask. The question that one should really ask is “so how should I study for a quality learning”.

So please, dont seek for the MAGIC CONSTANT known as “NUMBER OF HOURS”, abiding to which your life will change and the gates of IIT will open up wide for you.

Rimjhim has captured this point aptly in her comments to my earlier post.

Taking the driving example further its like asking at what speed should I drive. Lets say topacify you if someone gives you a magic constant of 40km/hour and you start to drive ONLY at 40km/hour without taking traffic congestion, red light, highway traffic into consequence then most often you would land up crushing someone, getting fined for crossing the red light or crashing.

More Reflection
As explicated earlier, the intention is not to give the correct answer, but to give a
correct analysis against which you can understand what to fine tune or correct.

I knew that most of the people will say leanring 8 hours on one day is a bad idea, but I also knew that there will be some people who will be on the other side of the court and will say that it might actually be a good idea. That is what is the beauty of the question and it requires some amout of mental maturity to appreciate it.

It all depends on what works out best for you and you would have to experiment everyday to figure out, in fact there are days when its good to not study for too long and there are days where burning midnight oil.

Comments on Comments
Lakshya brought in a very good point about “familiarity and experience” aiding the learning process. As I will bring out more in part-2 of the blog, but as a preview brain’s neural network gets attaracted to familiarity or “patterns”.

Nikki’s comment also bring out one point that its not just concious but also subconsious brain. So it really makes a good case for blogging about how brain operates…dont worry i would NOT junk you with needless medical information in my next blog

Gaurav, has done some lateral thinking and suggested to learn driving for 8 hours in one day but then has asked to learn further driving on one’s own car - thanks Gaurav for sure I will do that, but sorry you missed the hidden point

Pradeep Chhikara, thanks for your appreciation.

Neha Tomar has put forward her points very crisply, her comment “learning is no one night stand” might hit a bit hard but leave the point very clearly.

Last but not the least, let me applaud comments by Rimjhim, her comments hit the question most directly and she has also explained her answer picturously by giving another time-work example - good job Rimjhim.