Memorisation Tips for exam season
Author: Adan Khan 2 min 36 secs
The exams are quickly approaching, and students everywhere will be beginning to cram for their final exams. During this tumultuous part of the year, it essential to stay as organised and focused as possible. As all students know, finals season means you’re likely to be studying for more than one subject each day. You are trying to store information from different subjects in your deal all at once can become overwhelmingly fast. Learning a few essential memorisation tips can help you nail your finals. This article goes over these tips which will save boost your grades.
Use the chaining technique
The chain method is a beneficial memorisation technique that all students of whatever level should know. Trying to memorise information can be stupefying. The chain method, or chaining technique, focuses on connecting those individual points of memorisation into one coherent story or sentence. The method works best when you have a list of short items to memorise, rather than long dialogues or equations, as seen in some courses. Say you need to remember the following three terms: car, ant and pencil.
To build your first chain, you could think of a car walking on its wheels and fighting a life-size ant. To create your next chain, picture an ant carrying a pencil around. Finally, to link it all together, build a trigger word or phrase related to your list’s first item. This is a straightforward example. Naturally, terms for your course will be a little more challenging to link. For extensive, more complicated terms, try to picture an object that is related to the word. Then you can learn to associate the word with a visual cue. Practice this technique with simple words and work your way up using it with some of the more abstract concepts in your classes.
Application
Try to apply what you are learning rather than simply memorising things. For example, if you have an entire page of math formulas you need to study, don’t just read them over. Instead, do practice problems that use those formulas to gauge your understanding better. Taking information in is one thing, but applying it is something else entirely. Applying the knowledge you memorise will help you better understand it while also preparing for potential test questions that you may run into.
Active Involvement
If you can teach someone the concepts you are focused on memorising; you’re far more likely to understand the material better. Assuming a friend or a family member is willing to listen to you spout out information about the random topic you need to revise for, use their ears. You are far more likely to memorise something and understand it better if you explain it to someone else.
However, if you’re alone, try standing in front of a mirror and talking to yourself. This helps because you are more likely to remember something when you say it out loud. It is much better than passively memorising it in your head.