Memorizing tips (part 1)

Wish to achieve a better result in theoretical subjects?

Wish to retain topics more effectively?

Wish to know learn things quickly?

Theoretical subjects usually require a student to retain and learn things. Subjects such as History, Geography, Economics etc require you to memorize certain things in order to gain better understanding, and hence better marks, in the subject. For example, in History a student may need to remember series of events and dates, in Geography a student may need to remember Topographical features of a certain place or in Economics, a student may be required to memorize basic assumptions behind a theory.

There are some students who are god-gifted when it comes to memorizing. They could easily learn things after just 2 to 3 readings. However, many students are not like that. They need to go through the chapters several times to learn things. To help such students in learning quickly and effectively we present some tips:

i) Visualising: Visualising is truly a great way to learn series of events. Further, its application is very simple. Whenever. you wish to learn a chapter or topic, follow these simple steps:

•  First time read the whole topic to get a basic idea of the topic. 
• Then read it again, this time stopping after each paragraph. 
• After the end of the paragraph, close your eyes and visualise the event happening. 
• For example, you need to remember events happening during the life of a King, born in 1880, learned Horse riding, sword fighting and drawing at an early age and then went on to become a king, at an age of 45 years when his father passed away, of their empire, and he ruled until his death at the age of 65.
• Now close your eyes, visualize a small boy learning all the above. Start visualizing his daily activities. Then visualize the death of his father and him becoming a king. Specifically visualize the environment and celebrations in the town upon him becoming a king. Again, visualize activities he did or wars he fought during his tenure. Finally, visualize him to be weak and then his death.
• I know the example was really simple one but the technique, applied correctly to any theoretical topic, could provide excellent results, particularly when it comes to memorizing series of events or things in a specific series.

ii)  Making a story: Making a story is a technique to make sense of information that, collectively, does not make any sense. In applying it a student shall specifically try to make a story of several different ideas in order to learn them all. Let us take a very simple example; a student needs to memorise the following (in the same series):

• House
• Village
• Fire
• Sunday
• Cat
• Window
• Chair

Now what the student could do is simply make up a story of the above:

                      'The house at the nearby Village caught fire on the last Sunday morning. The Cat was looking through the window, standing over the chair".

iii) Flow charting: Flowcharts are a great way to summaries, remember and revise topics. After reading through each topic simply draw a flowchart. A flowchart would:

• help in clarifying connections between different components.
• help in retaining important points
• quick revision of topic

For further explanation and relevant examples, please refer the article on Flowcharts in Learning Tips section.

Hope the above tips help you in achieving better marks in your upcoming assessments.

Regards,