Best study techniques?

Question

what do you find the best study techniques/ways of memorizing notes?

i have a test in a few days and have a mountain of notes to memorize!!!

thanks

Answer 1

Sure fire thing that has never, ever failed me: read the notes, rewrite them. When I was in high school a teacher taught me this technique, explaining it as something to do with the way the brain stores/accesses information. I don't remember the whole lecture, but it's basic point was that if you write something down after you read it, you remember it much easier.

Answer 2

The best way to memorise anything is to assign meaning to it.

This is while repetition is good for keeping information in your short term memory it does not often successfully encode the information into your long term memory which is where you want it.

Assigning meaning can mean making up little rhymes to help memorise facts or it can mean actually thinking about information and WHY it is true. If you're doing history and memorising dates try to compare those dates to events in history that you already know well. For example you could say "this event happened on Sam's birthday the same year that the second world war ended"

The technical reason for this has to do with the way information is stored in your memory. Every piece of information is linked to other pieces of information and the more other 'informations' something is linked to the more 'paths' you have to find that info. The key to being able to easily recall information is to make as many paths to is as possible, or mentally linking to as many other facts as possible. Just repeating it links information to little or no other facts, it's just sitting there linked up to the day you repeated it or where you were. Giving meaning links it to everything that you have given meaning to.

On this note here is a good technique:

Find a location that you know well, your house perhaps. Grab a pen and notepad and walk through it making note of large objects that you will remember the location of. Then make another list of all the things you want to remember.

Now say that first thing on your first list is a grandfather clock and the first thing on your second list is that pigs like mud. Make a mental image of the grandfather clock covered with mud and with a pig dancing in front of it. Make sure it's a way out there mental image that you will remember. Do this for every piece of information on your list. When you need to recall the info image you're walking through your house. You see the grandfather clock and all of a sudden you have the mental image pop back into your head of the muddy, dancing pig. Voila, information recalled.

Another thing, information is also stored linked up the environment it was learned in. Research shows that if you learn something sitting by the pool drinking soda you will be more likely to remember it while you're sitting by the pool drinking soda so try and recreate the environment you will be in when you need to recall the information while you're studying. This means desk, bottled water but not chips, soda and lying on your bed with the tv on.

Sleep does help you to successfully store information in your long term memory but he warned that an afternoon nap will really help you remember everything you studied half an hour before the nap but really hinder you remembering everything that you studied three hours after you wake up!

The best thing to do is study just before you go to bed at night because while you sleep your brain stores all information from the day working backwards (so starting from the last thing you did before you went to sleep)

Answer 3

first reading and then rewritting is jus like taking xerox copy of the book,

so my suggestion would be just understand the subject whatever it may be for example if you just understand the logic of a perticular chapter you will be able to go easy with all the other sums,

so basic thing is to understand the concepts whatever u study and that will help

after all whatever we are studying is jus upgrading our knowledge and not just mugging up the book(xerox copy)

Answer 4

you cannot memorize every notes for a few days. i think you should do a lot of exercises about the lesson. besides it can help you remember quickly by referring to the question.

study smart not study hard...

Answer 5

section every subject you have eg:english, math science etc

first learn the hardest a you will be full of energy

then all the okay subjects then the easiest

keep on revising till the exam day

you can also invite your friends along and have a quizz day so you test them on your strongest subject

Answer 6

memorize small quantitys.... break it up.... sleeping reinforces it, so maybe an afternoon cat nap

omega 3 tablets!!! pump 15 a day for the next 3 days... i guaruntee you'll be sharper