Knowing When You Don’t Know

59
CHAPTER
8
K
NOWING
W
HEN
Y
OU
D
ON
’
T
K
NOW
You can only find an
answer when you have a
question. Once you’ve
identified what you
already know in your
study material, you can
find out what you don’t
know. Then you can
create questions, and
then look for the
answers. And then,
you’ll have learned
something!
H
ow often have you heard someone say,
“I don’t know”? That phrase is the key to studying. What

separates experienced students from inexperienced ones is
awareness of what they know and what they don’t know. Those with
academic experience know enough to ask the specific questions that will
help them find the answers. Once they’ve found those answers, they’ve
learned something new.
Separating Known From Unknown
George was studying geometry. “I know the answer!” he
exclaimed when Abe asked him to work on a problem with him.
“How do you know it?” Abe asked. “Well, I know what an equi-
lateral triangle is because I see the word equal in it. That clues
me to the fact that an equilateral triangle is a triangle with three
equal sides.”
“I know that, too,” Abe said, “but I still don’t know how to
find the area of the equilateral triangle.”
“Oh, you’re right; I don’t either,” George said, looking at the
problem again. “I jumped ahead too quickly; I only recognized
what I knew about the problem, not what I didn’t know. Let’s
look at this together. Maybe we can find something else we
know that will help solve the problem.”
HOW TO STUDY
60
FINDING OUT WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW
After each study session, and after each class or lecture you attend, your
final step must be to reflect on what you learned in that session or class.
Thinking about the session lets you check what you know for sure and
what you don’t know.
The writer of your textbook, or the lecturer in your class, is taking
you on a trip to some place you’ve never been before, and that “place” is
a new piece of knowledge or a new set of facts. When the trip is over—
when you’ve read the chapter or heard the lecture—you need to ask your-

self the following questions:
• Where was the writer or teacher trying to take me? That is, what
was the main idea of this reading or lecture?
• How did I get there? What were the steps that led to this
main idea?
• Have I arrived? Do I understand this main idea and all the steps
that led up to it?
Chapter 7, “Knowing What You Know” showed you how to know
when you know for sure. You know that you know the material when you
have:
KNOWING WHEN YOU DON
’
T KNOW
61
• A clear picture in your mind
• A clear sense of order
• No remaining questions in your mind
The problem is that sometimes you can think you know more than
you do. That is why it’s important to actually draw your picture and write
down the order. When you come to the point that you can’t
proceed with your drawing or list, you’ve hit the point where you should
start asking questions.
Another way to find out what you know and what you don’t is to role
play. Pretend you are the writer of your textbook, or your teacher. If you
have a study buddy (see Chapter 16, “Working with a Study Buddy”), one
of you can be the writer or teacher and the other the student. Explain to
your study buddy what you just read or heard. If you don’t have a study
buddy, explain it to yourself. Make sure you don’t leave out any steps!
When you come to any point where your explanation is unclear,
when it might not make sense to another person, you’ve found out what

you don’t know. That’s when it’s time to start asking questions. Once you
have questions, you can find the answers, and then you will know
something that you didn’t know before.
THE QUEST IS ON!
Finding what you know and then finding what you don’t know is some-
thing you already know how to do. If you were in an unfamiliar town and
wanted to get to Adams Street, you would know that you don’t know how
to get there, and you would ask directions.
Those directions would be based on what you already know—
your location at the time. You’re in the park, and you’ve been told Adams
Street is near the park, but you don’t know which direction to go. So you
ask. And someone tells you to walk north till you get to the end of the
park and then turn left and walk one block to Adams Street.
You might have one more question: Which way is north? And if
you get an answer, you’d follow those directions, walking to the end of
the park and turning left. So then you get to a street, but it doesn’t have
a street sign. How do you know if you’ve arrived? You stop someone
passing by and ask again.
1.
2.
3.
HOW TO STUDY
62
A
SKING
Q
UESTIONS
, G
ETTING
A

NSWERS
The process of asking questions to find out, first, what you already know,
and second, what you still need to learn, is similar. You might have to ask
more than one question as you find your way to the knowledge the writer
is trying to give you. Here’s a sequence you can go through to find out
what you don’t know and then ask questions and get answers. If you have
been reading a book, the text you’ll go back to for answers is the book;
if you listened to a lecture, your “text” is your notes or audiotape of
the lecture.
1. Draw a picture and write down the order.
2. Is this perfectly clear? Where are the gaps?
3. Ask yourself a question that will help fill in the gap.
4. Go back to your text to find the answer. Use the parts of your
picture or outline that are clear to help you see where in the text
you should look for the answer. Look in the sections of your text
that come right after the last clear piece of your picture or outline.
5. Read the relevant part of the text. Don’t try to re-read the whole
chapter or go over the whole lecture; you’re just looking for one
little piece of information, the answer to your question. Take it in
small chunks.
6. If you don’t have an answer, re-read the same section to try again.
7. If you still don’t have an answer, read the parts that come just
before and just after what you were reading. Repeat this process
until you find the answer to your question.
8. Put this new piece of information into your picture and order. Is
the picture clear now? Is the order clear?
9. Keep going back and forth between your study aids and the text
until your picture and order are perfectly clear, and you have no
questions left.
Now you’ve really learned something! You have a clear picture of the

main idea, and you know all the steps it takes to get there. But notice that
this clear picture and order don’t come out all at once. You have to take
it one step at a time, just as if you were following the directions to Adams
Street. And you’re always using what you know to help you find the
answers to what you don’t know.
KNOWING WHEN YOU DON
’
T KNOW
63
Here’s an example of how you use what you know to help you
create questions: Suppose you had to fill in the blank in the following
sentence:
When you don’t know something, your brain rushes to _____e it
has stored ideas on a similar topic.
In order to figure out what word should go in the blank, you should
go through the following process:
First ask yourself, “What do I know for sure about the sentence? “
Your responses might be:
• I know that the sentence is about recognizing when I don’t know
something.
• I know that it’s about the brain moving in some way.
• I know that there’s a storing place in my brain.
• I know that the missing word connects the brain moving to the
storage place.
• I know that the missing word ends with e.
Then ask yourself, “What kind of word would connect the brain
rushing and the storage place?” The word must have something to do
with direction. You make up more questions by connecting the words
you know that have to do with direction to the sentence:
• Is the word over? Over doesn’t end with the letter e.

• Is it here? That’s a direction word that ends in e,but here doesn’t
make sense in this sentence. Filling in that word doesn’t give you
a clear picture and a clear sense of order.
• You reject there for the same reason. The only word that really
works in the sentence—that gives a clear picture and order—is
where.
This was a simple example, but it shows you how to use what you
already know to arrive at the answers to the questions about what you
don’t know.