Perhaps you became interested in flying late in life (i.e. after puberty) in which case you could have found out all the answers to your questions by lurking on this and other aviation boards for a while or even by looking through the archives.
At the risk of being guilty of perpetrating a pet hate of mine - diverting a thread into an argument - I agree with the fundemental message Sky delivered. Although I think the technique could do with a little polishing
Basically, I am astonished at just how many people post questions that even as little as an hours research could yield so much more than forum questions could ever hope to meet. My guess is that if one is not fundementally a "go get it" person then one is not going get anywhere in a training process where what appears to be enough effort will be no where near enough effort.