It should take you two and a half seconds to read this sentence. Any faster and you won't absorb its meaning. The motor response of the retina, and the time it takes the image of a word to travel from the macula to the thalamus to the visual cortex for processing, limits the eye to about 500 words a minute. (That's peak efficiency; the average college student can expect a rate about half that.) "There is no such thing as speed reading," says Keith Rayner a cognitive psychologist at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. "Not if your definition of reading is comprehending text." Studies show that fast readers fare worse than slower ones when questioned about the text. So, to get smarter, slow down. It's even OK to move your lips.

Illustration: Christoph NiemannRelated Get Smarter: 12 Hacks That Will Amp Up Your Brainpower 1: Distract Yourself 2: Caffeinate With Care 3: Choose Impressive Information 4: Think Positive 5: Do the Right Drugs 6: Juice Your IQ Score 7: Know Your Brain 8: Don't Panic 9: Embrace Chaos 10: Get Visual 11: Exercise Wisely 12: Slow Down Plus: 6 Intelligence Myths Exposed