If you trace back your lapses of attention, you will often find that
they first occur when the thought becomes difficult to follow, the
sentence ambiguous, or a single word unusual. As a result, the meaning
grows hazy in your mind and you fail to comprehend it. Naturally, then,
you drift into a channel of thought that is easier to follow. This
happens because the mental stream tends to seek channels of least
resistance. If you introspect carefully, you will undoubtedly discover
that many of your annoying lapses of attention can be traced to such
conditions. The obvious remedy is to make sure that you understand
everything as you read. As soon as you feel the thought growing
difficult to follow, begin to exert more effort; consult the dictionary
for the meanings of words you do not understand. Probably the ordinary
freshman in college ought to look up the meaning of as many as twenty
words daily.

Again, the thought may be difficult to follow because your previous
knowledge is deficient; perhaps the discussion involves some fact which
you never did comprehend clearly, and you will naturally fail to
understand something built upon it. If deficiency of knowledge is the
cause of your lapses of attention, the obvious remedy is to turn back
and study the fundamental facts; to lay a firm foundation in your
subjects of study.

This discussion shows that the conditions at time of concentrated
attention are very complex; that the mind is full of a number of
things; that your object as a student is to keep some one thing at the
focus of your mind, and that in doing so you must continuously ignore
other mental contents. In our psychological descriptions we have
implied that the mind stands still at times, permitting us to take a
cross-section and examine it minutely. As a matter of fact, the mind