Many of us fall victim to some sort of hoax at one point in our lives. Unfortunately, I was duped into taking a $300 dollar course to "triple" my reading speed. It was offered here on campus through a demonstration. They timed us lucky volunteers as we used two fingers to scroll through a two-page text, telling us beforehand that we were sure to at least double our speed in this simple trial. When it worked for me I was instantly sold.
The class consisted of four, three-hour courses where we did drills similar to the demonstration. The idea was that once our eyes began to follow our fingers, we would begin to read in "chunks of words" and eventually our inner voice would diminish. After the third week of class they had us reading at 700-1000 wpm (words per minute). I was truly astonished at my speed...until I had to recall anything I had just read. We really were reading fast, however, we had not retained hardly any of the material we had just covered. As the book discusses, anything over 400 wpm is incomprehensible. So take from my misfortunes and proceed with caution when you sign up for your campus offered speed-reading course.
Watch a similar advertisement that sold me (here).
Well at least you won't spend money on speed reading again? It seems that this Psychology course has taught us a lot if not just to be smarter consumers. As for the speed reading goes, I am an incredibly slow reader and am always shocked when people tell me they read a book series such as Harry Potter in one night. I was always skeptical, but now I have proof that it can't be done!