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Have you studied for hours trying to memorise material for a test and then gone 'blank'? To help you reduce 'blanking out', practise the following memory strategies. If test taking anxiety is severe, practise relaxation exercises.
" Spread your memory work over several sessions
" Recite material aloud
" Expect to remember (assume a positive attitude)
" Organise your material into a meaningful pattern
" Test and retest yourself
" Overlearn
" Use hooks, catchwords and silly sentences
" Study before sleeping.
Sometimes pupils think that the longer they study, the more they will learn. Unfortunately, the reverse is true. Shorter periods of memory work - not more that two hours each - are far superior to six hours of frantic cramming.
Remember!
Reviewing memory work within 24 hours of the first study session is the most
effective way to master the material.
When you are studying or memorising, recite the answers to your study questions
aloud so that you can hear the answer.
Research studies show that answering questions aloud improves recall by at least
80 per cent!
Question yourself aloud and answer aloud.
If you study in a group or with a friend, quizzing one another will improve
recall. Although your memory may begin to fail on a test, the voice of the person
you studied with will often come through loudly and clearly.
Use all your senses
The more senses you involve in the learning process, the longer you will remember.
See it Read and visualise the material.
Say it Answer questions aloud that you formulate from your class notes. Use
your notes to help you ask yourself study questions.
Write it Write answers to questions from your study notes. Outline major points
from the text.
Repeat it Repeat this entire process until you have mastered the material.
Make a decision to remember! As obvious as this seems, many students fail to
realise the power of an intent to recall. Because you want to remember a favourite
song, you can easily repeat the lyrics word for word. If you want to remember,
you will.
Your attitude is the secret. Believe in yourself and in your ability to learn.
People who recall long lists of numbers often can do so because they have found a pattern or a relationship.
Look at this string of numbers and take a moment to try to memorise the list.
3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
(a) What is the pattern in this string of numbers? Do you see a pattern to these
numbers?
6 13 19 24 28 31 33 34
(b) Create categories to organise visualisations or maps of the information.
If you were trying to remember the names of students in one of your classes, how would you organise the material?
If you had to learn 10 definitions for class tomorrow, how could you test yourself? Would you write the definitions over and over or read the list aloud 20 times? Neither method is the best choice.
Instead, follow this self-testing process:
1. Memorise the first item.
2. Go on to the second item and memorise it.
3. Now repeat the first item and the second from memory.
4. When you know those two, go to the third.
5. Memorise the third item and repeat items one, two, and three.
6. Continue in this manner until all 10 definitions have been learned.
Revise material that you have learned several times. When final examinations or half-term come round, you will have mastered material that you have encoded for long-term recall. In maths classes, rework the model or sample five or more times to encode the correct process deeply.
" Commercials can haunt you for ears because of the constant repetition of a jingle or song.
Hooks
You hook the idea into your memory bank by using a single letter or catchword to pull up more information.
Most people have been taught ROY G BIV to remember the colours of the rainbow.
Red Orange Yellow
Green
Blue Indigo Violet
To remember these eight memory techniques, you can employ a similar hooking device.
R Recite aloud
O Organise the material
O Overlearn
S Spread out memory work
T Test and retest
E Expect to remember
R Recall with hooks and catchwords etc
S Study before sleeping
If the order is not important, you can create a catchword or phrase from the first letter of the words. The strange or bizarre is usually easier to remember.
Try it! Create a word by scrambling the above letters from the list of memory techniques. Spend no more than 5 minutes thinking.
The suggested answer is the catchword ROOSTERS. Each letter is a signal for the first word of one of the eight memory techniques. If you want to remember even longer, visualise in your 'mind's eye' or associate the catchword with an object or a place with which you are already familiar. Can you remember the image of roosters in a picture book from your childhood, or even better, actual roosters that you have seen?
Can you remember what ROOSTERS stands for?
Silly sentences
If words must be remembered in a specific order, then a rhyming nonsensical
sentence may help you. In fact, the sillier the word or sentence, the easier
it is to recall. For example, the colours of the rainbow mentioned under 'hooks'
could be learned by a 'silly sentence' such as: Read Over Your Greek Book In
Vacation (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.)
To get the most mileage from study and memory work, you should revise just
before going to sleep. Turn off the television and do not become otherwise distracted.
You will process this new material while you are sleeping. As you wake, revise
again. To put a tight cap on the bottle of information you are encoding for
future recall, revise again the same morning.
When you can visualise items from your text or classroom notes, they are much
easier to recall. The rooster visualisation was an example of how to use association
to remember. Simpler visual patterns can be just as effective. Whenever possible
use 'mind maps' similar to the examples shown below to organise material (or
create your own patterns). Once you've decided what information should be placed
on your design, draw a new one and fill in the blanks from your memory.
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