Study Cheat Sheet: Rapid Reading for Rookies
Read Now, Ball Later
“Everything I did, whilst at business school, contributed to my business. I learnt the most, most interestingly, by reading outside of my course load. You can learn almost anything by reading. The secret is to read.”
Bill Ackman, CEO of Pershing Square Holdings, an $11.5 billion hedge fund. Heard Live at an LSE Alternative Investments session - 11 February 2020.
My name is Toni Fola-Alade and I’ll do my best to show how to study as effectively as possible, to make time to do the things you actually want to do. I graduated from the University of Cambridge with a First Class Degree in Politics and International Relations in 2020, having been awarded a Prize and Scholarship. Whilst I was at University, I was the President of a large society, co-founded a conference, has the privilege of serving in an advisory capacity for government and the Vice-Chancellor of my University, sat on a variety of Boards and co-founded a charity. I completed multiple internships at Goldman Sachs and secured a job offer at one of the world’s leading law firms. I helped to launch DoGood Africa, which has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for dozens of social impact projects in Africa over the last year (and happens to be backed by Google Grants and some other big companies). Whilst at university, I started a couple of companies, some of which folded and some of which I continue to build with my friends today. One of these startups, which I now run as CEO, raised two rounds of investment from investors whilst still in University. I also played Judo and Rugby for University teams and was well known for being wherever the fun is, travelling around the country for social events or throwing my own. There are more adventures I left out but you get the picture.
That’s a pretty intense list and not a very humble brag, but the truth is far more complex. I’ve truly struggled throughout my academic career, even if it did not show on the surface. I was diagnosed with a specific learning difficulty when I was 14. Time felt like it was frozen during every class, I spent every second staring at the clock wondering why the minute hand wasn't moving?!? I often wanted to be anywhere but there. Throughout secondary school, I would get to the end of each school day wondering how I made it through. I found ways of powering through school but I had to get creative: I had to find the cheat codes. Thinking I had cracked the code, I waltzed into university before being swiftly humbled. A cloud of permanent anxiety was on me, but only when I was in Cambridge. I was still the life of the party when my peers needed me to be but apart from that, I’d rather be anywhere but there. I almost got a 2.2 in my First Year of University (1 mark off to be precise). I thought about dropping out of university all through my second year and the decision was almost made for me on account of a “failure to study diligently”. My Tutor cried, on my behalf. Long story, for another day. Trust me when I say, I get it. I lived it. I’m just trying to write the guide I spent many days trying to find on google, instead of studying. Myself and my co-founders actually raised the second round of investment, during a lockdown induced by the coronavirus pandemic, whilst I was studying for my final exams. We raised the funds and I got my First Class. Pretty cool but I wrote this guide more for the person who is “lazy,” than the one who is busy. That person who thinks they can’t do it, the person who is drowning. I wrote it for you.
I would never advocate for cheating but I have always (and will until the day I leave God’s green earth) look for Cheat Codes. That’s what made the difference for me. This goes far beyond just studying, it is what has allowed for me to generate outsized returns in my life with relatively low effort. A cheat code is generally a method or device used by gamers to advance levels, or to get other special powers and benefits in a video game. These Cheat Codes give the gamers an added advantage over other gamers who do not use a cheat code; they are never explicitly made known to the public. Interestingly and ironically, Cheat Codes are created by the developer and put in the game intentionally. The term cheat code can also be used to describe anything a person does other than the traditional way of doing something for the purpose of winning or scoring above their competition. Cheat Codes do not mean that you don't play the game. You can’t opt out the game. You can only control your likelihood of winning and losing. You will still have to work and it will definitely still be a grind. Cheat Codes are about playing the game as efficiently as possible, maximising your effectiveness so that you can attend to other matters.
We are all playing many games and that has never been more true than for our generation. You’re trying to balance a lot of things and the pressure is a lot. You’re thinking about career and preparing for the world of work, whilst just trying to get through education. You’re probably already holding down a part time gig or a side hustle. Distractions are endless and you’d probably sell your left lung to just be able to lock in and concentrate for a few hours. Everything feels urgent and there’s way too much information to handle. Even if you were doing things right, how would you know? Everyone looks like they’re winning and you can’t possibly say that you’re struggling?!
This is an excerpt from ‘Cheat Codes: study secrets for the busy (and lazy).’ Now that I have finished formal education (for now), it only feels right to formalise and pay forward some of the knowledge I received to the community, as free game. I’m a deep believer that whilst individuals have success, there is no individual success. Many of these lessons were hard-won through trial and error but some of them were passed by friends and mentors, who share in my success. The full guide drops before the end of the year, so you’re well prepared for the inevitable “new year, new me!” It exposes the Cheat Codes that allow you to get good grades, ACTUALLY learn something, and free your time up to do what you’d rather do.
It focuses on three main pillars: 1. Mindset, 2. Strategy and Systems, and 3. Exam Tactics. 1. Mindset: Your mindset is the foundation that everything else is built on and you won't believe that success is possible without dialling your mind in.2. You wouldn’t try to win a Championship without a game plan and exams are no different. I spend the bulk of my time making sure my system is watertight because it makes the execution, the studying, way easier. Without a strategy, you can work incredibly hard and still lose. With the right strategy, you can use cheat codes to work more efficiently and get great results. This Rapid Reading guide is one of many strategies in the guide. Then you can apply the tactics that help you to stop procrastinating and get started, or avoid distractions and stay focussed on the task at hand. You’ll make sure you work through the content and feel fully prepared for game day. The combination of well-executed strategy and tactics allows you to dominate on exam day. It is my goal to provide at least 10x more value than the cost of the product. Considering that great exam results can add tens of thousands to your future earnings, I know the investment will be well worth it. That's a 1000x investment, not even bitcoin will do that *wink*! Whatever you decide, I truly hope this Rookie Read was valuable or, even, life-changing.
Preamble, but good stuff (if you ask me)
I’ve had the privilege of listening to lectures by lots of great thinkers, from Bill Gates to Jordan Peterson, Angela Davis to President of Ghana. However, the Bill Ackman lecture, where the quote at the start of the article was taken from, had a profound effect on me for several reasons. Firstly, it was the last lecture I attended this year because of CORONAVIRUS. Secondly, the conditions preceding the lecture were crazy. That week I had submitted an application to a pitching competition for our start-up, I changed my dissertation topic last minute (the faculty was not happy), I’d had an Advisory Group meeting to the Vice-Chancellor of our University. I’d also gone to London to play in an Old Boy’s game at my school, went out with the bros (and bumped into one of the Associates from my internship) and handled some brainstorming meetings for some new potential ventures. I came back to uni, participated in a Take Me Out (and won, because imagine losing?!), went to a rugby social (and wrote an essay after, which is never a good idea) and then went to Oxford University for their Take Me Out event (because why not do both?). I ended up ‘hypemanning’ for my friend’s DJ set in Oxford that same evening. I woke up the first thing that morning, headed to Chelsea for a Board Meeting for a charity I’m involved with, missed my first tutorial and caught the last 14 minutes of my second tutorial. If you know Oxbridge, attending your tutorials/supervisions (a one-hour 1-on-1 discussion of your essay) is the only thing that you are required to do; missing them was not a joke. If it’s worth anything, those 14 minutes were some of the most enlightening in my academic journey. Such adventure-filled weeks were not unusual for me in uni but I was particularly tired this time. For an energetic guy, my tank was emptying and I knew the crash would not be pretty. I had delivered three 2000 essays within five days: Social Ontology, African Politics and History of Economics Whilst I knew I had a Philosophy of Economics essay due in 3 days, which urgently needed writing, I did whatever a reasonable person would do. During my tutorial, I put a poll on my ‘close friend's’ story on Instagram, whilst I should have been listening to my peers' opinion on popular protest in Africa. At the end of the tutorial, I saw that 100% of my friends voted for me to go to the lecture. Begrudgingly, I trusted my instincts and headed straight to the station. Barely 3 hours since leaving Sloane Square, I found myself in London for the second time that day, this time on the LSE Campus. As I often say, it can only be God that allowed me to graduate, let alone do reasonably well in that degree.
The third reason I found the lecture fascinating was because of who Bill Ackman is. First of all, he’s worth $2 billion. He did his undergrad at Harvard, graduating with a magna cum laude (with highest honours). That’s pretty normal for a hedge fund billionaire, only that he graduated with a Social Studies degree. That was encouraging for a Social Studies student with an interest in Finance, I didn’t have to be broke. That also means he’s read a lot of books in his time. He didn’t talk too much about his undergrad, although his answer to my question suggested he got in some trouble (as most contrarians do). He talked extensively about his MBA experience, however. Bill did mention that trading stocks in his dorm room and reading to satisfy his curiosity (mostly Warren Buffet) was his real education. He clearly found a way to maintain his social life, play tennis, kill his studies and build the foundations for a trading empire. However, you can see that his University education has shaped him.
For example, he called the Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham his ‘guiding document’, going on to say that “for me, it was the equivalent of reading Jean-Paul Sartre’s essays on existentialism, which tends to have a profound effect.” An article I found on philanthropy.com revealed that Bill had planned to make lots of money and give it away, as the ethical and logical thing to do, after reading John Rawls’ political philosophy as an undergraduate. This paints the picture of an incredibly well-read individual, casually weaving together references to one of the greatest French philosophers and social commentators of the 20th century into a conversation on Investment management. This is evidently a man who used his studies as a tool to both achieve and make an impact.
It was learning to read efficiently that had allowed me to have the crazy week I did, complete three essays and be able to take the time to attend that life-changing lecture. Writing precisely is the most useful skill you will learn as a student to get better results in exams. However, reading decisively is the most highly leveraged skill you will pick up as a student, in university, to improve your life. Writing speeds tend to be fairly consistent across individuals but the ability to read efficiently can save tens of hours in a week. Throughout university, my writing speed stayed pretty consistently at a couple of hundreds of words an hour, when in a focussed flow state. However, I shaved tens of hours off my weekly reading time throughout my studies. It was this same skill that allowed me to pour through hundreds of books and articles to generate an original thesis in an incredibly under-researched field. It also allowed me to read the interesting material that fuels these articles. As he said, whilst my degree changed and shaped my worldview, I was also shaped profoundly by what I read outside of my reading list (and the countless experiences I made priorities, outside of schoolwork). A Cambridge Reading list for one 2000 word essay can be 40 books long. Learning to read efficiently is a must, simply to survive. That is the subject of today’s Rookie Read. So all this preamble, give us the Cheat Code.
A little more preamble, before I do. Earlier that year (30th October, to be precise), I had learned a secret that would change my life. The Cheat Code was discovered after a long evening of doing nothing and watching football/playing Fifa with some Masters students. At around 11 pm, a certain Masters Student, who I had met that evening, had got up and said he was headed to the library. He had mentioned earlier that he was ranked First in his class in his undergrad and so I was surprised he worked late at night, like me. He asked me what the reading list was for the essay. I was intrigued and decided to follow him since I had an essay due that I was just not going to do, and he obliged. I couldn’t tell him. I had taken out one book in my Cambridge University career, called The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt. I didn’t read it. I read a few chapters of the copy of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan, that I already owned, and that was it (ironic because he was an alumnus of St John’s College, sleeping and studying in the same halls and dorms as me). I’d read a few articles but I had made it to my Third Year at Cambridge University, mostly by scanning book reviews and relying on notes from older students. Prince asked me to get my syllabus and we looked through it. The library just so happened to have the required readings on the list, Jeffrey Herbst’s States and Power in Africa and Crawford Young’s The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. Perfect, but there were 6 other core readings I needed to get through, how could I possibly get through them in one night? What I would learn between the hours of 11 pm and 5 am would change the way I read for academic purposes forever.
The Cheat Code: To read efficiently, you need to know what you’re looking for. Any book can be summed in one or two lines, max. Academics aren’t paid very well so they make most of their living from books. As a result, they tend to pad them with more words than necessary and repeat themselves often, so that it looks like the book is worth their price or so that they look serious (exactly what I’m doing now).
Your number one mission is to form a great argument for your essays, essentially contributing to the ongoing conversation. To do this, you need to be able to have a thorough understanding of the existing arguments, hence the reading list. Arguments are structured as follows.
Argument Structure
An argument is a group of statements including one or more premises and ONLY ONE conclusion.
A statement is a sentence that is either true or false, such as "The sky is blue."
A premise is a statement in an argument that provides reason/support for the conclusion (thesis statement). There can be one or many premises in a single argument.
A conclusion is a statement in an argument that indicates what the arguer is trying to convince you, the reader, of. This can usually be summed up in one line.
Thesis (Conclusion): As I mentioned, a writer’s argument can be surmised in a thesis statement. The thesis statement is the answer, often for an implicit question that their book is trying to seek a solution for. It is the thinker’s central argument that will be proven and defended throughout the work. It is a claim, not a fact. Scan the book looking for the thesis: this is academic gold. A good writer will structure their argument clearly, making their thesis clear towards the end of the introduction or first chapter. Others are more muddled or like to take the scenic route, like me. For example, the thesis of this article is the Cheat Code: Any book can be summed in one or two lines, max. You could walk away from his article with that information and get the point I am trying to convey.
For an undergraduate essay, a complete understanding of the thinker’s works is not necessary, nor is a complete understanding of the book. You are essentially identifying key thinker’s arguments and putting them in conversation with each other, to serve your own argument. You are mainly addressing a point of contention or critical question in the field of study, rather than doing a book review or summary. Your time should be spent advancing your own argument in an essay; as a result, the fluffy details of the other authors are pretty irrelevant. It seems super simple and obvious but, it is that simple. Find that one line in the book or the article. Ideally, you can directly quote the thesis statement, selecting a line you think best encapsulates the scholar’s argument. Alternatively, you can paraphrase what you think they’re trying to say. It should be able to read, “Marx argues that….” Remember, no more than two lines.
Practical tip: I would often form a working document for an essay, where each thinker on my reading list’s thesis statement is listed. If there were 5 core readings, I’d have 5 bullet points. I would then read each of these and see what I agreed with most, either synthesising ideas from the scholars or creating my own argument. I would then have my thesis statement as thesis number 6. My own thesis would serve as the anchor for the essay; as I mentioned, your essay is about your answer to the question. We already know what the other guys have said. More on effective writing in future works.
Premises/Evidence: A thesis statement is a claim, not a statement of fact. As such, there will be a number of factors that lead the author to conclude that their central argument is indeed correct. Whilst the introduction will give you the gold, the thesis statement, that usually isn’t enough to work with. You need to understand why they're arguing that. What led them to that conclusion? Currently, we simply have a list of 5 statements from 5 scholars that might be very similar or wildly different. The way you’ll decipher who makes the most sense is by analysing their premises. Thinkers can come to the same conclusion for markedly different reasons. Usually, there will be 2-4 premises in a thinker’s argument. A good introduction, especially in a journal article, will likely make the premises clear. The premises will usually be the 3-4 sentences preceding or following the thesis statement, as evidence for that conclusion. Alternatively, in some books, where the thesis may be less clearly made, the chapters of the book act as premises.
Each chapter of the book usually aims to act as some sort of premise, although not all chapters are necessary. That is why your reading list may only require you to read certain chapters of a book. Each Chapter will likely have its own mini thesis statement, which surmises what that chapter is about. This will be the premise. This is usually found by scanning the first and last pages of that chapter. You will almost certainly be able to find the line that sums up what that chapter is about. Once you’ve found that, you can move on. No time to waste reading the rest, you don’t get marks for reading. You get marks for arguing, which we elaborate on in the Cheat Codes guides.
Practical tip: In my working document, I liked to list the premises under the thesis statements for each respective scholar. I’d often have the thesis statement in the colour red and in bold. I would then list the premises, in order, in sub-bullet points in green. This would essentially summarise the book in 5 bullet points. It would look like this: the author thinks this Big Idea and these are the 4 reasons why.
An Example: Below is the introduction to my Final Year coursework essay for the History of Economics at the University of Cambridge, which received a First Class. The question was ‘Discuss the roles of the division of labour and the accumulation of capital in the theory of economic development put forward in Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Critically assess if and how this discussion might help us understand significant aspects of contemporary economies.’
“Smith builds an impressive theory of economic development, where the division of labour and capital accumulation, driven by technological change, would lead to rising incomes for labour. The division of labour was just one such form of technical progress, and thus his theory is based on the particular market dynamics of his age. Later technological improvements have been rapid and labour-replacing, accruing the majority of wealth and political power to the owners of capital, dis-embedding the market from society. This is largely due to ineffective institutions, which themselves are rooted in and justified by neoliberal misreadings of Smith. Contemporary critiques of Smith's theory would find striking similarities if read in context. Smith’s approach to political economy and economic history stressed the role of institutions in guiding an advanced economy through technological change - this was the cause of ‘universal opulence,’ optimal creation and equitable distribution of wealth. The emergent phase of technological change, the advent of Robotics and AI, will change the global economy and society on an unseen scale, with profound capacity for mass unemployment and decreased wages at the gain of capital. I conclude that a return to the core of Smith’s approach to political economy, which emphasises the role of institutions in steering technological change, is desperately needed to use AI and Automation for the benefit of society, creating the ‘universal opulence’ Smith desired.”
Breaking this introduction down into a thesis and premises looks like this. I could then turn these into full and coherent sentences that eventually become the introduction paragraph above.
Thesis: I conclude that a return to the core of Smith’s approach to political economy, which emphasises the role of institutions in steering technological change, is desperately needed to use AI and Automation for the benefit of society, creating the ‘universal opulence’ Smith desired.
Premise 1: Smith builds an impressive theory of economic development, where the division of labour and capital accumulation, driven by technological change, would lead to rising incomes for labour. The division of labour was just one such form of technical progress, and thus his theory is based on the particular market dynamics of his age.
Premise 2: Later technological improvements have been rapid and labour-replacing, accruing the majority of wealth and political power to the owners of capital, dis-embedding the market from society.
Premise 3: This is largely due to ineffective institutions, which themselves are rooted in and justified by neoliberal misreadings of Smith. Contemporary critiques of Smith's theory would find striking similarities if read in context.
Premise 4: Smith’s approach to political economy and economic history stressed the role of institutions in guiding an advanced economy through technological change - this was the cause of ‘universal opulence,’ optimal creation and equitable distribution of wealth. The emergent phase of technological change, the advent of Robotics and AI, will change the global economy and society on an unseen scale, with profound capacity for mass unemployment and decreased wages at the gain of capital.
You could read my introduction and not need to read the rest of my essay to get the gist of the idea I am trying to convey. Your task is to find the paragraph within the book, as explained before and break it down like this so that the thinker’s idea is clear.
Once you have all of the scholar’s ideas broken down like this it's very easy to start to understand their differences in thought and the reason why. It’s far easier to deconstruct arguments when you can easily visualise them and compare differences in thought patterns. This can be easily done by making a table of all the scholars, their thesis and premise, side by side. It’s also easier to spot if one of the premises can be contested when analysed in isolation (and trust me, a premise can always be contested).
Examples: Whilst you can write a good essay with just an understanding of the main argument and its supporting premises, the examples are where you can show flair. Whilst books are often packed full of largely irrelevant examples and case studies, selecting one or two examples per book is useful. There are usually elements of context that go into formulating a thinkers argument. They might use examples that are geographically limited or time-sensitive and thus not apply or be relevant in all cases or the specific point of contention. What holds for the UK may not be true in India. Interrogating the examples that inform the premises can create exciting angles for you to create original arguments. Don’t bother trying to go through every example in the book or article, just select one or two and assess its merits or validity. The use of an excellent example can equally be useful for you, as you can make an argument supporting the thinker, using another example you’ve thought of to confirm the case they have made.
Example (of the use of an example, ironic) - another sample paragraph from the same essay:
“Economic history has a significant place in understanding the flaw in Smith's impressive theory, underpinning his assumption that technological change was always beneficial to labour. Smith systematically traces the evolution of European development from the fall of Rome in Book III, identifying four stages of hunting, pasture, agriculture and commerce as distinct socio-economic environments and reciprocal relations. Thus theories of value and the dynamics of wealth creation are transitory, relating to the historical structure of economies and their technologies. Classical Political Economy developed as a ‘theorization of the nascent industrial economy’ where prosperity was generated by agriculture and basic manufacturers (Singh, 1959; Cardinale, 2018). Kim situated Smith’s “story of the division of labour at the dimension of economic activities" within an analytical framework of economic history (2009:50-51). Smith clearly understood technical progress as labour-augmenting; he argues that for productive powers and the quantity of labour to increase, "an additional capital is almost always required" (1776: 110, 337). Kerr (1993:25) argues that "technological change is continually represented in WN as the central element in his argument, the element around which the main propositions revolve." In this way, Marshall is correct in claiming that “ there is scarcely any economic truth now known of which he did not get some glimpse” (1890: 757) but Smith could not foresee the labour-replacing capabilities that capital would soon possess in following stages of economic development. Later Classical, Ricardo (1817) and Marx (1867) would observe the increasingly rapid development of machines with potential labour-replacing capabilities. This privileged the 'masters and manufactures,' the accumulators of capital, and increased their share of the wealth, in ways Smith could not have foreseen. Thus Ricardo was already calling the issue of income distribution the ‘principal problem’ of economics, some 40 years later after Smith. Whilst Smith could not anticipate the labour-replacing effects of capital, as they were yet to manifest, he does leave us with an invaluable tool kit for managing technological change.”
Here I argue that Smith’s theory was indeed correct, at the time of writing. However, he assumed that technology will always make human labour more productive and, therefore, make human labour more valuable. This increases the wages that labourers are paid. The famous example in Smith’s writing is the increased productivity in pin factories, observed by the well known French philosopher and writer of the Encyclopédie, Diderot. The assembly line in a pin factory enables a worker to make 500 or 5000 pins an hour, instead of 50, without that technology. Human hands were still required to operate the assembly line. However, as we all know, this is no longer the case, as technology can now make human’s irrelevant, causing the inverse effect. For example, automation has potentially completely removed (or greatly reduced) the need for humans in pin factories.
Without knowing what evidence Adam Smith based his premises on, it is difficult to refute him. Analysing his evidence base makes it evident to us where he went wrong but also allows to credit him for making the best possible argument available at the time. This is an example of the power of examples, funny I know.
To recap, there are only three things you need. Find the thesis statement of the thinker, the hook that everything else rests on. Quickly scan the rest of the first chapter (or the first and last pages of the prominent chapters) to find the premises that support the claim. Look for key examples for you to play with.
That is it. Rapid Reading. Godspeed, Rookie.
Seriously, this is quality content
Pure Masterpiece