A closer look
Highlighting a textbook feels incredibly productive, which is exactly why it's a trap. This is metacognitive miscalibration: the disastrous gap between how well you *think* you know something and your actual competence. Fluency in reading creates an "illusion of learning." Because the text is easy to process on the fourth read-through, your brain sarcastically applauds you for mastering quantum physics, when in reality, you've just memorized the font. True learning requires the painful friction of active recall, not the comforting delusion of passive rereading.
