taking and retaining from a paragraph? what do you do?

Determine for yourself what the real subject is. This will determine which words would have been bold-faced. Just because a story is called "How Tsunamis are Formed" doesn't mean the description of their power is the subject. Highlight only what you don't already know about "how" tsunamis are formed.

The more difficult the topic, the harder it is to determine. "The Peter Principle", for example, isn't about "Peter". "The Phenomenology of Internal Time Consciousness" has three topics--what is time? how are we conscious of it? how can our consciousness of it be explained phenomenologically? And there are sub-topics. In a case like that you would use different color highlighters for each topic and each sub-topic.

But in a difficult book, how do you separate the topics? Critical thinking resulting in valid conclusions is about the only way, aside from using "helper" books to show you the separations---such as WHAT is phenomenology, and how does it explain things? Only then could you hope to make sense of that book about time consciousness.

Well, it isn't precise that studying a passage greater than as soon as is a signal of ADD. I myself generally learn paragraphs greater than as soon as intent both I'm distracted through ideas or it simply does not make any feel. So, i feel you are well.

you use a "highlighter"... usually a yellow magic marker that lets you illuminate a significant word or phrase. this is a common practice in college. I would alawys try to buy used text books from students who got A's

I think these can be easily achieved through mental control or mental regulation. I mean our thought patterns should be set right accordingly, without getting confused in between.