Metacognition

When I was in 5th grade, I read the book I Am Gifted, So Are You! by Adam Khoo. It was the first book that teach me how to study effectively. The second person teach me metacognition is my cousin, Sang. He was staying at my house for a little bit and I learned a lot of study tricks from him. The third teacher is Mr. Thanh, a friend of my uncle Kevin. From him, I mainly learned meditation technique that's specific for learning.

I frankly didn't pay much attention to them because I was smart enough to pass most classes without using tricks. However, when I get into undergrad, things get way harder, so I start to look back and reconstruct my learning methods to excel in undergrad.

I can work very hard but there are only 24 hours a day. I am smart but only to a certain level. A lot of my friends in college are smarter than me and we can easily see that when we play intelligence related games together. I'm definitely slower than a lot of them. But the point is, I still have higher grades than 95% of them with straight A+. To get to this position, it's less about being smart or hard working because at this level, everyone is smart and hard working. So the question is what else I can do to go further. If hard working helps me better than 50% of the population, plus being smart, I'm now at 75% but is that it? How do I go further? What can I do to bridge the gap between 75% and 95%?

My answer for that question is study tricks. I already maxed out hard working and intelligence, if there's anything I can do, it's gotta be tricks. There are plenty of popular generic study tricks available everywhere on the internet. I can name some on the top of my head like

• Pomodore Technique 

• Active Recall

• Space Practice

• Minimize distractions

This does work pretty well. I think this one brings me to like 85% ish. However, at this level, other smart hard working people use study tricks, too. So, now I'm facing with how to go from 85% to 95%. This one is actually a hard problem. I'm still figuring this one out but my answer for this section is unusual tricks.

Unusual method leads to unusual result. It could be good result or bad result but it is, for sure, unusual, so it has a chance to be extremely good. With this principle, I came up with a lot of unusual tricks and try them out until I find the ones that fit. Some of them sound crazy and extreme but that's the point. You kinda have to pay a cost to get to the elite level. Here I can list you some of my crazy thoughts

• Study in dream (failed)

  • This requires lucid dream which I wasn't able to replicate

• Remember knowledge with trauma (worked)

  • I stop breathing for 2 minutes when I need to memorize an important equation

• Memorize problem and solve them in my head everywhere I go (worked)

  • I did practice a lot of mental math before I can do this

• Finish the course before it begins (worked)

  • Sit in (audit) courses quarter(s) ahead of time