How to study at the university?

Hi,

Id like to improve my note-taking skills and critical thinking abilities. My problem is that if i read a text about some topic, I dont usually think about what I read, I just try to understand the meaning of sentences/paragraphs/whole text, but I almost never think about weaknesses or application of the text to real life. To explain: I study social sciences and often read someone´s theory about topic X. Than we have to read reaction of another person to the first person´s writing. Only when i read the second one, I see that i didnt notice some serious problems with Text no 1 and i see I didnt really think about the topic. How can I improve my critical reading skills and whats the best way to really force myself to think about the topic in a larger context and see relations with other subjects and to be more critical about the authors I read? Is it even possible to learn this?