y is plainly to work harder. In exerting more
effort, make some changes in your methods of study. For example, if you
have been accustomed to study a certain subject by silent reading,
begin to read your lessons aloud. Change your method of taking notes,
or change the hour of day in which you prepare your lesson. In short,
try any of the methods described in this book, and use your own
ingenuity, and the change in method may overcome the plateau.

If a plateau is due to our last-mentioned cause, insufficient
preparation, the remedy must be drastic. To make new resolutions and to
put forth additional effort is not enough; you must go back and relay
the foundation. Make a thorough review of the work which you covered
slightingly, making sure that every step is clear. This process was
described in an earlier chapter as the clarification of ideas and is
absolutely essential in building up a structure of knowledge that will
stand. Indeed, as you take various courses you will find that your
study will be much improved by periodical reviews. The benefits cannot
all be enumerated here, but we may reasonably claim that a review will
be very likely to remove a plateau, and used with the other remedies
herein suggested, will help you to rid yourself of one of the most
discouraging features of student life.

READING AND EXERCISE

Reading: Swift (20) Chapter IV.

Exercise I. Describe one or more plateaus that you have observed in
your own experience. What do you regard as the causes?

CHAPTER XIII

MENTAL SECOND-WIND

Did you ever engage in any exhausting physical work for a long period
of time? If so, you probably remember that as you proceeded, you became
more and more fatigued, finally reaching a point when it seemed that
you could not endure the strain another minute. You had just decided to
give up, when suddenly the fatigue seemed to diminish and new energy
seemed to come from some source. This curious thing, which happens
frequently in athletic activities, is known as second-wind, and is
described, by those who have experienced it, as a time of increased
power, when the work is done with greater ease and effectiveness and
with a freshness and vigor in great contrast to the staleness that
preceded it. It is as though one "tapped a level of new energy,"
revealing hidden stores of unexpected power. And it is commonly
reported that with persistence in pushing one's self farther and
farther, a third and fourth win