I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School by Caroline Taggart

I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School Reviews

• 
  Megs ♥

  This was the "Free Book Friday" selection this week for the Nook, and the blog I found it on marked it with the tagline New Year, Smarter You. Do I think this book makes you smarter? Not really. It is still an interesting and very quick read, anyway.
  
  It started off with English, and I skimmed that. English was the only thing in school I actually did like and remember. For those who are interested it was just a quick rundown of sentence structure and famous authors.
  
  Then came the math section. Admittedly math was my absolute worst subject. I read through this part thinking some day it may come in handy when my son comes asking for help with math and I have no clue what he's asking about. Unfortunately fractions were about the toughest thing this book mentioned.
  
  There was then Science, and a few other subjects. By this time I felt I could remember more facts from watching "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader", so again I just skimmed.
  
  I graduated in 2002, so I admit I do forget many things from school, but I wouldn't recommend this book. It was okay for a free read, but I wouldn't suggest anyone buy this book, because all of the information in it could easily be found with a quick google search if you actually ever needed it.
• 
  kb

  Meant to be a refresher but surprisingly, I still remember most of the basic English, Math, and yes, even parts of the history and literature (even though American/European!) discussed here, and I feel like many readers will share that opinion. Okay for a quick read, but not very exciting or engaging.
  
  
  Everything I read in 2020 here :)
• 
  noorannina

  This book made me remember things from school I had forgotten but also I learned new things. Taggart’s humour was at its best in the beginning, but half way through and especially the other half of the book she almost stopped adding her funny comments, which was a shame. The chapter about literature was too long and boring but other parts of the book were easy to read and quick to grasp (although I still don’t get chemistry but whatever). 😄
• 
  SouthWestZippy

  The book is broken down into seven chapters, English, Literature, Math, Science, History, Geography, and General Studies.
  Just to name a few things included in the book.
  In the History chapter,George W. Bush(R,2001-2009) is the last President listed so is edition is dated but that is a easy fixed, just need to find the latest edition.
  The Science chapter has the complete Periodic Table of the Elements. I never did get the entire table memorized but I passed Science so all it good.
  In the Literature chapter, a list of Notable Authors.
  If you or you have a kid in School, I highly recommend having a book like this on hand. It is a quick, easy to read and understand reference book.
  
• 
  Iris Post

  Honestly the idea behind this book is good, it's just very poorly executed. What they put in this book is not the stuff you forgot from school, it's exactly the little unconnected useless bits I still remember, but the explanations around it are missing. For example it will mention Florence Nightingale and then not say a single thing about her. It mentions that the soviet union fell apart but not say a single thing about how that happened, but then there is a whole page about a random battle in medieval england. There's a random paragraph about planets slapped onto the last page, and there are long lists of countries, states, prime ministers and kings that are honestly just lazy page-fillers. Waste of money, paper, ink and time.
• 
  Thomas Coughlin

  Had some time to kill while in Raleigh and the title intrigued me so decided to read through it. I thought the premise was nice of refreshing on often forgotten school topics but the book was so surface level and tried to cover too much in too few pages that there really wasn’t a ton that it brought up that I had forgotten. Also didn’t think the book was organized as well as it could have been.
  
  Definitely did help with refreshing a few things I hadn’t thought about in a while (parts of speech, the carbon cycle, and laws of physics to name a few), but I think there are probably many books with similar intentions to this one that are better executed.
• 
  Gail Wylde

  I have found that I definitely knew more than I seem to remember now. But hopefully reading this has put a few more facts back into my head. If these things stay in my head I should be a worthy team mate for the pub quiz team. I will keep this book to hand for dipping in and out of. A great “Covid 19” read.
• 
  Eastofoz

  An unexpected surprise for this book with a very à propos title. How many times have you tried to remember the answer to say a geography question and you thought to yourself in frustration: I used to know that!! I thought it’d be a bit dryish but far from it. This is the kind of book you want on your shelf if you’re one of those people who likes to look up fast facts that you “may” have forgotten from those bygone school days, but you never seem to have gotten around to getting it. Sure you can go to the internet to find the info too but this has some easy to understand information given in a fun way.
  
  Presented as a hardcover that looks like an older style school notebook, it covers all the basics/essentials from English Lit to Math to Science and General Culture. You could of course buy some mammoth reference books on these subjects alone but what I liked about this book is that it’s easy to get the information, it’s not long winded and it has some really good charts like the periodic table of elements and a list of famous Brit authors with what they wrote and when. What I liked about the Literature part was that it covered American and British lit as well as some important world literature even if it was mostly from western Europe.
  
  The math chapter was interesting because it answers some very simple questions that you may have totally forgotten and it also tells you why you were probably taught this stuff. Have you ever wondered why in the world they were teaching you the Pythagorean Theorem, well here you’ll get your answer ;-) Even subjects that you may not have been interested in school suddenly sound interesting. It’s all in the presentation.
  
  This is part of a four book Reader’s Digest series (that I came across by complete accident) and what I’ve read of it so far had me buy them all. If you’re a reference book lover this will make a nice addition to the ever-burgeoning shelf :-)
  
• 
  Kathryn

  This book was a Free Fridays selection on the Nook a while back. It's a collection of various facts that the author believes you have forgotten from school. It's not bad as a shallow survey of general knowledge.
  
  The author does get a few things wrong, though. For example, when talking about temperature measurements, she says incorrectly that Kelvin is a relative scale like Celsius and Fahrenheit. This is not true. A kelvin is a unit; it's one of the seven base SI units and is defined as the fraction 1⁄273.16 of the thermodynamic temperature of the triple point of water (to quote Wikipedia). There is no such thing as degrees kelvin; a temperature given in kelvins is written, e.g., 300 K, not 300°K. (She also mentions the Réaumur scale but leaves off the Rankine scale, which I found inexplicable. Neither my husband, who is an aerospace engineer, nor I, who am a biomedical/electrical engineer, had ever heard of Réaumur. Rankine was the clear choice for a fourth scale.)
  
  There is also, of course, political bias (though I will say the author did a decent job of being fairly even-handed, compared to what I was expecting). Overall, this is a decent survey of general knowledge. It's not worth whatever the publisher is charging, though; you can get a better overview of any of the treated subjects for free on wikipedia.
• 
  Freda Mans-Labianca

  This is a fantastic little book! Everything in it is something you learn in school, but often as adults we forget. It was nice to read through and refresh my mind with this useful information.
  It has every thing from presidents and prime ministers, to royalty and their reign. From every war to every turning point in history. Plus a lot of other useful things too.
  A great gift for students who need a bit of help in history, or for an adult who loves it.
• 
  stormhawk

  Cute collection of assorted factoids that should have been part of one's education. Perfect book to leave in the "executive reading room" for those contemplative moments.
• 
  Sully (sully.reads)

  Intellectually done! :3
  I actually enjoyed the history section of this book ;)
• 
  Cathryn Conroy

  If you're of a certain age and watched "Saturday Night Live" back in the day, you no doubt remember Fr. Guido Sarducci's Five-Minute University. The joke is that the good padre is starting a university, and all you learn is what the average college graduate remembers five years after graduation. It's hilarious! (Watch it on YouTube.)
  
  This book by Caroline Taggart is the 200-page version of the Five-Minute University. While nothing in it is likely to make you laugh, it's mildly amusing to see how much you do remember—and more likely forget—mostly from high school and middle school. The chapter titles read much like a report card: English, Literature, Math, Science, History, Geography, and General Studies.
  
  You'll get a refresher on the following:
  • The parts of speech—you know, adverbs, adjectives, and how to tell if a verb is transitive or intransitive.
  • Summaries of classic literature from Jane Austen to Shakespeare, a few of which are kind of snarky.
  • A review of math from arithmetic to trigonometry. No calculators allowed!
  • An overview of basic science, including biology, chemistry, and physics. Find out why stainless steel doesn't rust (practical science!) and get a pretty good description of E=mc².
  • Obviously, the chapter on history barely scratches the surface with quick summaries of the big wars from the Battle of Hastings in 1066 to the ongoing Iraq War. Weirdly, I thought the best part is the selected list of Canadian prime ministers and their claim to fame--fascinating and often hilarious.
  • The geography chapter is short, but the best part for me is the list of states' nicknames.
  • The last chapter on general studies is everything else—from art to music to religion. There is even a list of Roman numerals. Pay attention, and you'll always know the number of the Super Bowl.
  
  I'm giving it three stars for two reasons: It's laughingly incomplete not only in what it doesn't include, but also in what it does, giving short shrift to every topic. What bothers me the most is that there is no bibliography, which is unacceptable in a book like this.
  
  While I read it cover to cover on a Kindle, I think the best use for it is a paperback stashed in the powder room. It's great bathroom reading! Pick it up, open it to any page, peruse the text, and amuse (or depress) yourself with what you completely forgot.
  
• 
  Wendy Beckman

  I loved
  Caroline Taggart's
  I Used to Know That: Stuff You Forgot from School! This book gives a quick refresher of a variety of topics that everyone should know. I have to admit that it also made me feel good because I remembered a lot of it! After I read it, I gave it to my granddaughter. She's only 7, but I feel it will help her someday.
  
  One other group of people who would enjoy (or should read) this book is high school juniors. Need a refresher for the ACT or SAT? This will show what you don't know and need to get a little extra help.
  
  I wish this book could be updated every five years or so!
• 
  Bonnie

  Birthday Book #86 from my friend Pat. To be fair, I didn't actually read this book, but it's not actually a reading type of book, either. Just a reference of bits and pieces of knowledge. Who knows, I may actually refer to it from time to time. I did skim through it, noting sections on the English language, literature (English and American), math, science, history and geography. And there appear to be more specialized books in this series as well. Of course, they do tend to get outdated rather quickly. This one shows George W. Bush as the most recent U.S. President. In that regard, who knows how helpful books like this can be?
• 
  Cherie

  A funny little book that gives an overview of a variety of topics from well known Authors, Artists & Poets, to school Maths, English, Science, and general things like country capitals, world religions etc. Includes a lot of lists. Does it with a bot of humour. It is pretty much 50% stuff you already know and 50% stuff you probably learnt at school and have never had to remember since so you have promptly forgotten (unless you are a teacher or whatnot!).
  
• 
  Joy

  I think this would have worked better in a print edition (I listened to it on audio). Tedious lists, particularly in the history and geography section. Yes it did remind me of a few things I had once known, but for the most part was just things I still remembered (like most of the maths) and things that were of no interest to me. - it wasn't really presented in an entertaining manner at all. I was expecting more from this.
• 
  Theo Kokonas

  For the topic itself, it was true to it's description. It will cover off many of the highlights from school (albeit with a British bent). It also reminded me of just how much I disliked mathematics and couldn't get find the applicable purpose of it - I've obviously gone into a line of work where it's not particularly important.
  Certainly worth the read if you have children, and a great starting point if you wanted to delve into something from school that was of mild interest back in the day.
• 
  Andrea

  Fun little overview of some of the stuff you may have learnt at school (at least if you're British). Not surprisingly, I found the chapters on the stuff I'm interested in (like literature and history) more interesting to read (I actually only skim read the maths and science chapters, so I still have no idea how to do quadratic equations).
• 
  James Kinsley

  Like an encyclopedia, but shorter. Can't quite decide if it wants to be a completely dry reference book or a friendly, 'remember this?' school nostalgia trip. But written in an easy style and quite useful if you want to look up something basic about kings or wars or the Periodic table, and the internet's gone down.
  The Maths section befuddled me though.
• 
  Frances

  Little book of facts
  
  While most of this information is not useful in my adult life, I can see how I will reference this as my children go through school. Covers a nice range of subjects.
• 
  Simon

  Your GCSEs or whatever they're called now don't mean shit with this... plus there's Google although that's a fucking rabbit hole... definitely read Alice in Wonderland, there's a brilliant caterpillar in it... he turns into something but I won't spoil it because that's not fair
• 
  Gabriela

  A lovely, witty read that makes you feel good about remembering things you thought you had forgotten. I also learnt a fair bit as it’s very all-encompassing. Would recommend if you want to improve your general knowledge. Hopefully I’ll win at Articulate this Christmas!
• 
  Kristin

  My final book for 2020 is an old Free Friday ebook. This contained a lot of the basics you'd liked to have remembered from school, and some useful bits my education never got around to covering. The bits on world history and geography were especially insightful. Concise and effective, so I'm giving this 3.5 stars.
• 
  Jennie

  A fun book of some of the bits you learn at school and never think about again! some of the areas are naturally out of date now, but nonetheless a quick walk down the school memory lane.
• 
  Emma Dargue

  Good book to recap knowledge definitely one to dip when you need to refresh your knowledge.
• 
  Jerome Toon

  A fun book and a great refresher....
• 
  Danielle Russell

  Pretty good book that gives you a summary of a lot of the topics you would have learned in school.