# Speed Reading Is Real **URL:** \ **Category:** Productivity\ **Tags:** speed-reading\ **Created:** [November 20, 2017, 8:36am UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/speed-reading-is-real/33078 "2017-11-20T08:36:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 5
**Author:** ![Grandzam](https://forum.artofmemory.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/dec6dc/32.png) [@Grandzam](https://forum.artofmemory.com/u/Grandzam)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2018, 8:41pm UTC](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/speed-reading-is-real/33078/5 "2018-01-23T20:41:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Give me a novel and I can read it at 1500 WPM, give me a Stephen Hawkings book and I might read at 100 WPM. That is one problem with speedreading, just because you can do it with one text doesn’t mean you can with the other." > > They both did tell me their speed is significantly lower if they’re not focused and/or aren’t interested in what they’re reading. I doubt it’d be as low as 100 WPM since even I never read that slowly, but yes your point there is otherwise valid. It isn’t about how interested they are in something. If you have a text that is both written in a confusing way and also contains concepts that are difficult to understand, it becomes impossible to speedread effectively. I highly doubt you can read Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason at 100 WPM if you have never read it before. It is impossible to read something like that and understand it without frequent and lengthy pauses to think about what the philosopher is actually saying. My argument is that speed reading isn’t all that useful in day-to-day life because whenever you care about what you are reading, what matters is if you can understand the content inside and not the words. --- _[View the full topic](https://forum.artofmemory.com/t/speed-reading-is-real/33078)._