Another meta skill is to decide when to use which type of reading. You have to do both the free-association, daydreaming, thinking-outside the-box, connecting-t

Another meta skill is to decide when to use which type of reading. You have to do both the free-association, daydreaming, thinking-outside the-box, connecting-the-dots, aha-moment style but also the practical get-things-done down-to-earth concentrated reading. For some reason the latter style has been difficult for me outside of exam prep. So when people say college is just a prestige scam, the exams are bollocks and pointless, I always remember how it at least got me to sit on my ass and crunch through the material in a focused way. Pretending is not enough. Learn it out of passion and enjoyment but solidify it with the boring exam-style stragtey is best. The latter without the former is rote memorization that many college students mistakenly equate with simply "studying" and it leads to the issue of not being able to use it outside a course context or quiz type scenarios.