> it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and evaluate a research paper well This completely coincides with my experience. When I started grad school,

> it took 2 years to become reliably able to read and evaluate a research paper well This completely coincides with my experience. When I started grad school, it took me a few hours to read one paper, and I probably understood only 50% of the materials even though I had some foundations in the research area from my undergrad studies. Reading textbooks is a great advice. Then one can start reading some review papers in the area to get some more depth in his/her knowledge. I think the difficulty is that it is hard to find good textbooks and review papers for the subject that one is interested in, especially when the subject is in a niche field.