Customer Reviews

You Are Smarter Than You Think!: Using Your Brain the Way it Was Designed: The Missing Piece to Success

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My nursing school requires you to complete this book. When I first picked this book up I thought oh gees, do I have to do this stupid "how to study" book. I have always been an A student and I really thought I had a grasp on my learning style and the best way for me to study. I have been working through this book and been very very pleased with all the info I gleaned from it. I found her to be right on about my best learning style and already have decided I will completely incorporate her suggestions. I was shocked to find I am an auditory learner and not a visual learner. I really thought I was a visual learner and I scored very poorly on that. (And it was clear and very apparent that I was NOT a visual learner that I learned the material better by auditory). This book is much much more than determining whether you are a visual or auditory learner though. There are lots of tips for studying and ones I just would have never thought of. I can't say enough about this book. I am actually anxiously working through it now, where as when I brought the book home I didn't even want to do it. I don't want to proceed with any further studying till I finish it.

I knew something was wrong when I began putting extra time into studying and my test grades didn't change.
Though my 4 children are in public school now,I had been a home-schooling mother and felt I knew the in's and out's of teaching,learning and studying.
I had the desire to do well on tests and yet the best I could do was a high B grade.
Over winter quarter I asked other students who did well on tests what they did to study and most everyone was either a natural A student and didn't have to study and others employed simple reviewing of class notes and 3X5 card memorization of key concepts (short-term memory).
Sometimes when I asked students about their study habits I would have the opportunity to tell them why I was asking and what I had found out from others.Adult and younger students alike wanted me to get back to them if I found any ideas they could use in studying that would work, so I knew I wasn't alone.
I have looked at and bought many books with promising titles. All of them filled with dull put your nose to the grindstone type of study habit suggestions. If you are already doing that now what?
This book was the end of my search. My test grades have improved significantly, I am spending less time studying and because I know I have done all I need to do to prepare for a test there is no room for test anxiety.
I no longer waste time studying in ways that don't work for me.So I have more time to relax without guilt.
The most shocking thing I discovered was, I had been using my weakest form of learning to study by, and my strenghts were virtually untapped.
This book can change your college experience and grades.If your just looking for tips and tricks you can get those ideas in any book.
This book will make a significant difference unlike the rest.

You Are Smarter Than You Think is an excellent book that everyone should read. This book helps you maximize your potential learning behavior. Various questions and exercises assist you in determining what your learning behaviors' strengths and weeknesses are. You may discover that you retain information better if you play the piano while you listen to your lectures and notes on tape. Mollan-Masters helps you discover your learning channels and then she provides you with numerous strategies that have been proven to work for those channels. In the back of the book she provides you with a wonderful, concise Application Chart which summarizes the strategies to be used for listening to lectures, reading a textbook, studying for a test, and taking tests that accompany your particular learning style. As a college student, this book has helped me tremendously this year. I have cut down on the time I spend studying because I am now studying using my learning channels appropriately, thus maximizing my learning behavior. I absolutely love this book. I even bought a copy for my little brother who has been experiencing learning difficulties in junior high school; and I bought a copy for my sister-in-law who teaches learning disabled junior high students. Both, my brother and sister-in-law, agree that this is an extremely helpful tool in mastering your learning difficulties.

Now that I've read the book and done the
self-assessments, I'm adding my voice to the chorus of praise for it.

I teach a student success course at a large university and have asked my campus bookstore to order copies for my students.

What impresses me most about You Are Smarter Than You Think!, apart from the assessments themselves and Mallon-Masters' explanation of how to use the information they provide, is the author's deep understanding of how struggling students think.
They're conditioned to believe that when conventional
reading, note-taking, and study strategies (i.e.
those used by visual/linguistic learners like me!)
don't work for them, the only way to improve is to
"try harder." Struggling students are often so invested in dominant learning paradigms that they're unwilling to risk
trying unfamiliar ones, and Mallon-Masters does very well to
acknowledge that unwillingness (and the fear and anger that often
accompany it). In chapter five, the four mini-games Mallon-Masters invites readers to use to validate their assessment results are brilliant. Months after learning that
music is my strongest attribute, I can still remember
the book's ISBN!

Many struggling learners are told they must turn their weaknesses into strengths before they can succeed. This book's message is that people learn best when they know how to use their innate strengths, and that focusing on one's strengths is much more powerful and productive than focusing on one's weaknesses. Thanks, Ms. Mallon-Masters, for the gift of this book.

When I first saw this book, I thought to myself, "I'm an adult learner. Adult learners don't learn as quickly or as well as children."

I was wrong. This book showed me that I can learn by using the method most suited for me. By a series of questions and readings, a person can find out what learning type he or she is and what kind of system will work best. The system teaches how information is recepted in the best way for each individual, how to organize it, and how it can be retained. It even helps with test anxiety.

I recommend this book to all adult learners who, like me, think they are too old to go back to school. Thanks, Ms. Masters.

I recommended this book to a nursing student who was having difficulty on exams. Her grade on the first exam was a D. She bought the book, seriously worked through it, and then scored 97% on the next test. I could not believe it made such a difference in her ability to comprehend and test. In ten years, I've never had a student make 97% on a test, much less one who was having problems!

Nursing students many times have such a hard time figuring out how to study and correctly answer the application/analysis level questions they are required to master in nursing school. To have a tool that can help them achieve this goal is beyond wonderful. I am estatic at the results and so is my student. She has since passed the book to classmates that are also having problems and they are improving. This book is at the top of my recommendation list for nursing students.

This is a very helpful book. I started using it about a month ago, and it has already made me feel much better about college. My mom, who is a high school English teacher, is also planning on using it to supplement her classes.

This book is good for those who need to know "how" to study.
Retaining the information is a definite for any studying
you do where, afterwards, a test is involved. However,
you cannot erase memorizing...you either have to remember
what you read or the information of how to remember what
you read. This book may provide you with a method of how
to remember an easier way. I did not find this book to
be beneficial to me personally.