Customer Reviews

Accelerated Learning

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I purchased this book expecting a lot more , I was expecting this to be a guide on the state of the art in accelerated learning with practical examples on how to increase your learning power. However what I got was a summary of all recent research and some half-hearted attempts at practical training. Especially annoying was the frequent use of specious argument and hearsay. If you are looking for more than a relaxing read do not buy.

This book is kind of a sales pitch, which also explains why it was provided by the people trying to sign up students at my company. The general perspective is easy to describe--there is a very strong presumption that these are very effective learning techniques, and the book is trying to share the author's excitement and strong belief in the merits of the approach. The structure is partly historical, following the development of the techniques, and partly mechanical, considering some of the techniques in isolation.

Much of what the book says does make good sense, but overall I felt that the approach was rather light and even ineffective. The numbers and evidence were weak or anecdotal. It just felt like advertising wrapped in pedagogical paper. Kind of external to the book itself, but relevant is that the techniques discussed have been around for many years under various names, but still seem to be regarded as outside the mainstream and have only limited acceptance. The book frequently argues that these techniques produce superior results and work for everyone, and yet nothing much seems to have changed.

The writing is clear enough, and it will give you some interesting data, but standing by itself, it just doesn't seem to make its case very effectively. I would probably feel differently if I had some positive exposure to classes taught along these lines.

Filled with inspirational case studies and insight, Accellerated Learning tells how memory works and the ways to apply it. Accelerated Learning lifts my attitude up two levels whenever I pick it up. I have successfully applied many techniques learned solely from reading this book.

colin rose's "accelerated learning" is like sheila ostrander and lynn schroeder's "superlearning", where it discusses the "learning how to learn" techniques that are heavily based on the seminal work of dr georgi lozanov's "suggestology/suggestopedy". however, the former book is much better in presentation of facts and it discusses beyond dr lozanov's work.
it is interesting to note that the book applies what it teaches. for example, the book has a highly visual "memory maps" at the end of each chapter that serves as a summary.
however, i'm a little bit disappointed because of the book's lack of documentation, i.e., whenever there is presentation of an experimental study or a fact, the author occasionally fails to cite the source, whether from a book or from an academic journal. because of this, interested scholars are discouraged to trace the original source to look for evidence.

When I buy books like these, I try to implement whatever techniques are given and I look for any possible changes. It has been about one year since I read this book. I can't remember much about it (hint #1 that it isn't great), and since then I haven't noticed an improvement in my 'learning speed' (hint #2). I can't say it was bad, but no aspects of my life really improved in any way because of reading this.
I would recommend this book to those who aren't very self-aware or aware of how or why they learn/read the way they do. It is a very basic, beginners learning improvement book.