For university students, there are a variety of ways in which to retain important information during lectures for later reference

For university students, there are a variety of ways in which to retain important information during lectures for later reference. While many students consider typing as the best way to do this since it allows you to take a great number of notes quickly and easily, others opt for using phones or cameras to record lectures so that they can listen again or re-watch them later. There are also those who stick to the traditional “pen and paper” approach. So the question is: Which is the most effective method?

            In an experiment at Princeton University published in 2014, students were given lectures to watch and were told to take notes. Half were given laptops and half took notes with a pen and paper. Afterwards, when they were asked to explain the concepts covered in the lecture, the students who took notes by hand did better. But why? The answer lies in the fact that while the students using laptops were more likely to type down what the lecturers said word-for-word, those who write more slowly by hand had no choice but to summarize the information with keywords. Word-for-word note-taking involves little cognitive processing. You can even do it without thinking about the content at all. But when you actively summarize the information, you process the information more deeply. Another advantage of using a pen and paper is that you can move around the page very quickly as well as easily circling, underlining or adding extra information in the margins.

            How about recording lectures? In a research conducted at the University of North Carolina, pharmacy students were told that their lecture would be split into two halves. The first 50 minutes would be videoed so that they could watch it again later if they wanted to, but the second half would not (which means they will have to take notes using pen and paper). In the end, there were no difference. This is because both techniques offer their own advantages. The advantage of not having to take notes is that you can focus your full attention on what’s you’re being told without worrying about writing it down, because you can always listen again later. But the benefit of taking notes with pen and paper is that it forces you to process the information and think about it in order to work out the best way of summarizing it.

            So whether it’s best to record lectures, use pen and paper or type down notes is more or less down to personal preference. Of course, if you can type fast and what you need is a transcription rather than a summary, then a laptop is ideal, but if your aim is to understand the material better, think about taking notes by hand or recording the lecture (without forgetting to watch them again, of course). But one more thing to consider is that typed notes do have an advantage when it comes to easy storage and searching. And the other lesson from all of this, of course, is to always try to make your notes shorter and clearer.

(Adapted from bbc.com)

Question 35: Which of the following best serves as a title for the passage?

            A. Why Taking Notes With Pen and Paper Is More Effective Than With Laptops

            B. Comparing The Different Methods of Retaining Information In Lectures

            C. When Should You Choose To Take Notes Using Laptops During Lectures

            D. The Unique Advantages Of Recording Lectures Compared To Taking Notes

Question 36: Which of the following is NOT TRUE?

            A. Adding more information to your notes when using pen and paper is hard.

            B. Word-for-word note-taking does not require much cognitive processing.

            C. Typing allows students to take a lot of notes conveniently.

            D. Recording a lecture enables you to fully concentrate on it.

Question 37: The word “covered” in paragraph 1 can be best replaced by _________ .

            A. supported   B. discovered  C. discussed    D. revealed

Question 38: The word “they” in paragraph 2 refers to _________ .

            A. notes           B. students      C. lectures       D. laptops

Question 39: The phrase “offer” in the last paragraph is closest in meaning to _________ .

            A. reward        B. show           C. pay D. bring

Question 40: Students that took notes by hand in the 2014 experiment did better when asked about the content of the lectures most likely because _________ .

            A. they quickly moved through pages to find necessary information

            B. they could circle, underline or add important information easily

            C. they had to process information more deeply when taking notes

            D. they wrote the information down more slowly and accurately

Question 41: Why must we think more about the information we note using pen and paper during lectures?

            A. Because we are usually too worried about writing it down

            B. Because we will not be allowed to listen to lectures again

            C. Because we will most likely forget to look at them again later

            D. Because we have to find the most effective way to summarise it

Question 42: What can be inferred from the passage?

            A. The majority of university students prefer taking notes with laptops.

            B. Taking notes by hand helps us to retain information the longest.

            C. Recording lectures is only effective if we review what we recorded.

            D. Note-taking by hand is better than note-taking with laptops in all cases