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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

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

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

• 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.