READ, READ, READ- how much?

<p>Just how reading does the average college student do? 20-50 per week per class? Just 40 per week total?</p>

<p>I know that this is hard to predict as most professors are different and it depends on the class, but give your best estimate.</p>

<p>Another thing, I timed myself at reading, and I read at about 22-25 pages an hour of a econ book ("Naked Economics" by Charles Wheelan); Am I incredibly slow? What's your average?</p>

<p>BTW "Naked Economics" is a great read with great econ expamples. I'm really enjoying it. I don't know how it compares to "Freakonomics" though, because everytime I go to the library to rent it out the clerk says, "We're currently renting them all out," then she calmly sips her coffee, and starts reading Davinchi Code. "She is so over-paid" I think to myself as I drag my feet across the carpet exiting the library.</p>

<p>I was expected to do approximately three hours of work outside of class per every in class hour. Work that out as you will. Probably a third of that in my case was reading (I'm a science major) but if you're not in a math or science, it's almost all reading and the same time committment applies.</p>

<p>Ever heard of placing a hold?</p>

<p>I never actually read that much. =X The general rule of thumb is that you're meant to do about 3 hours of work for every hour that you're in the class, but I don't ever find this to be really true unless it's a really work-intensive class. </p>

<p>For instance I have an advanced session of a class right now and I do so much work for it that I pretty much have no free time or much sleep time during the week, and I keep not doing the work for other classes just to do the work for this one. But if I measure it out, it only comes out to being a little bit above what 3 times classroom hours would be per week (about 30 hours vs should be 24). My other 4 classes are a lot less, probably closer to 1 hour of work per 1 hour of class right now. I don't think anyone actually consistently does 50 hours of just homework on top of classes and other things every week.</p>

<p>Really does depend on the class, I am a politics and history double-major so a lot of my classes are really reading intensive and I've had classes which required at least 150 pages a week and sometimes double that.</p>

<p>great responses, but what about the speed of which you read part of the OP?</p>

<p>If 22-25 pages slow? average?</p>

<p>What's your average?</p>

<p>Thanx</p>

<p>I read about 75 pages in an hour, depending on what I'm reading and how much of it I want to take in. The more interesting the material, the faster it goes.</p>

<p>^^^^wow^^^^</p>

<p>that seems impossible</p>

<p>I usually spread my reading out between classes, during lunch, ect... Makes it seem like much less reading than it is. </p>

<p>If I had to guess I'd say 3 hours of reading per day (depending on the classes I have scheduled) at a leisurely pace. Often I will reread the same few lines if there was something interesting or something I wanted to bring up in discussion. </p>

<p>Don't worry about speed, there is plenty of time in the day to get all the reading you have done and have a little fun.</p>

<p>for me it seriously depends on the text</p>

<p>like i have plow through a fiction book in less than a day where not every word is important. </p>

<p>a biology text book can take me hours to cover just 20 pages. i dont think i'm slow, just every picture and line usually has some value</p>

<p>Reading can be heavy at times.... I think last semester, with 3 reading classes (including a senior seminar), I read about 500-600 pages a week.... fortunately, I'm a fast reader and can go through up to 80 pages an hour if the material's very interesting.</p>

<p>75 is possible, I usually do about 50-60 an hour, if I paid a little less attention while I am reading I could probably get up to 75.</p>

<p>any tips on improving reading speed?</p>

<p>there are about a billion books, but i think the real key is read actively</p>

<p>not reading actively means going back frequently to reread what you read cause you werent paying attention, just gotta focus and put everything else on hold
- try not going back</p>

<p>Hmm I wonder what my reading speed is. </p>

<p>All I remember is that I use to read one goosebumps books a day :p</p>

<p>just give yourself 20 mins to read, at the end of the twenty minutes count your pages, then multiply the pages by three. Thus, pages per hour</p>

<p>hollllllld up</p>

<p>how much you read a hour can't be quantified in "pages per minute." I can read a short 200 page novel in like 3 or 4 hours if i try, but I can't read 200 pages of a textbook in 3-4 hours. A textbook can have nearly 4 to 6 regular book pages per page. So its hard to say how fast one reads.</p>

<p>Don't worry about reading speed too much. By "improving" it, you may just be decreasing your retention rate.</p>

<p>i concur with jags. depends on the book. textbook material can take a lot longer for me to read because i tend to read it slower in order to take it in more, understand.. etc.. whereas novels.. i'm just going through because it's for entertainment. i read most novels in one sitting whereas i would never do that for a textbook :O</p>