What's the best way to memorise content? (1 Viewer)

asharnadeem

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I've noticed that whenever I try to rote learn content, it only stays within my short-term memory and I tend to forget it in a few days. What should I do after my "memorisation session" to ensure that I keep this content in my long-term memory? I can't memorise 60+ pages of notes in the couple days before the exam. I have my first internal 3 and a half weeks from now. Thanks.
 

Drdusk

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I've noticed that whenever I try to rote learn content, it only stays within my short-term memory and I tend to forget it in a few days. What should I do after my "memorisation session" to ensure that I keep this content in my long-term memory? I can't memorise 60+ pages of notes in the couple days before the exam. I have my first internal 3 and a half weeks from now. Thanks.
Maybe memorise it more? Each time you read it you’ll forget less and less. Another thing is take it in chunks. Maybe you forget a lot because your trying to memorise too much at once so the information is not being retained properly. You have to figure out how much you can memorise at a time and have it stick. Also you should try and memorise the key ideas, memorising line for line is inefficient and is not really how you should go about it, though there are many instances where you do have to know it line for line.

Alternatively the way I used to memorise is read each line and then 2 or 3 lines later try and recite that line. If I’ve remembered it I continue the same process with the next lines but if I haven’t I go back to that line and repeat the process of trying to recite it again after 2 or 3 lines.

Though what I did may not work for you. I would say I had a pretty decent memory but I haven’t compared it to others so idk.
 

black.mamba

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I'd suggest spaced repetition (i.e. learn a few pages today, go through those pages tomorrow, then again in a few days, and then again in a couple weeks). After every repetition, you'll know the content better, and you can give yourself a longer interval before going over it again.
 

idkkdi

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Maybe memorise it more? Each time you read it you’ll forget less and less. Another thing is take it in chunks. Maybe you forget a lot because your trying to memorise too much at once so the information is not being retained properly. You have to figure out how much you can memorise at a time and have it stick. Also you should try and memorise the key ideas, memorising line for line is inefficient and is not really how you should go about it, though there are many instances where you do have to know it line for line.

Alternatively the way I used to memorise is read each line and then 2 or 3 lines later try and recite that line. If I’ve remembered it I continue the same process with the next lines but if I haven’t I go back to that line and repeat the process of trying to recite it again after 2 or 3 lines.

Though what I did may not work for you. I would say I had a pretty decent memory but I haven’t compared it to others so idk.
humanbenchmark number memory score?
 

idkkdi

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I've noticed that whenever I try to rote learn content, it only stays within my short-term memory and I tend to forget it in a few days. What should I do after my "memorisation session" to ensure that I keep this content in my long-term memory? I can't memorise 60+ pages of notes in the couple days before the exam. I have my first internal 3 and a half weeks from now. Thanks.
I'd suggest spaced repetition (i.e. learn a few pages today, go through those pages tomorrow, then again in a few days, and then again in a couple weeks). After every repetition, you'll know the content better, and you can give yourself a longer interval before going over it again.
Maybe memorise it more? Each time you read it you’ll forget less and less. Another thing is take it in chunks. Maybe you forget a lot because your trying to memorise too much at once so the information is not being retained properly. You have to figure out how much you can memorise at a time and have it stick. Also you should try and memorise the key ideas, memorising line for line is inefficient and is not really how you should go about it, though there are many instances where you do have to know it line for line.

Alternatively the way I used to memorise is read each line and then 2 or 3 lines later try and recite that line. If I’ve remembered it I continue the same process with the next lines but if I haven’t I go back to that line and repeat the process of trying to recite it again after 2 or 3 lines.

Though what I did may not work for you. I would say I had a pretty decent memory but I haven’t compared it to others so idk.
another option is to do enough questions such that you just memorise the content.

if in a not enough time to memorise scenario, it might be useful to wake up early and engage your ultra-short-term memory by memorising on the day of the exam. but that's the last possible option lol.
 

Drongoski

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May I suggest you write down (by handwriting & not by typing) (conscientiously, consciously & not hastily) whatever you need to memorise. Repeat this a few times, until you get it. At latter stage, try to reproduce as much material as you can, by recall, referring to the original material only after you have made serious efforts to recall, in order to verify those parts you have recalled, and to fill in parts you could not recall.
 

idkkdi

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May I suggest you write down (by handwriting & not by typing) (conscientiously, consciously & not hastily) whatever you need to memorise. Repeat this a few times, until you get it. At latter stage, try to reproduce as much material as you can, by recall, referring to the material only after you have made serious effort to recall.
To OP:
This method of trying to reproduce as much material as possible by recall, if done relatively early, can be extremely painful and demoralising, but probably has the best effect.

If scared, just do questions lol.
 

dumNerd

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I've noticed that whenever I try to rote learn content, it only stays within my short-term memory and I tend to forget it in a few days. What should I do after my "memorisation session" to ensure that I keep this content in my long-term memory? I can't memorise 60+ pages of notes in the couple days before the exam. I have my first internal 3 and a half weeks from now. Thanks.
I just memorise stuff in the bus to and from school and then look over what I memorised at night. I go through 8 pages on the bus and then go over them at night. Next day another 8 and at night the whole 16 pages, and so on. After I go through all of them I don't look at it for like a week and somehow from then on I rarely ever forget
 

Drongoski

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In the thinking of Western Education, rote learning, (which invariably is associated with memorisation) is frowned upon if not despised. I personally think that is rather misguided. In traditional school learning, one of the skills they acquire is memorisation. This is not necessarily the mindless robot-like learning they think it is. I think it is a very good additional learning tool to have. I observe that people in Western learning are usually poor at memorisation.
I recall a Yr 12 student, struggling to remember the exact values of sin, cos & tan of 0, 30, 45, 60 & 90 degrees. What about the thousands who still cannot remember the 12 x 12 multiplication table, even in Yr 10 (don't worry, there's always a calculator nearby).
 
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The way we recommend to memorize content at edzion education is to put what you have to learn around your house so you see it frequently. During your exam we find our students are able to picture their notes in the place in their house. This method has seen some of our best results. Hope this helps!
 
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dumNerd

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Probs not compared to others in my grade but my notes were usually two columned, font size 8-9 and double sided (no images, images would be on a separate thing) and condensed af so that my brain would think im memorising less pages so probs around 20-30 pages in 2-3 hours. I think the average is like 15 pages per hour for most people. Plus if you already know the content, it should be faster. Whereas, if you have no idea and are just straight up just rote memorising, it's a lil longer.
Yeh that's solid
 

Greninja340

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Probs not compared to others in my grade but my notes were usually two columned, font size 8-9 and double sided (no images, images would be on a separate thing) and condensed af so that my brain would think im memorising less pages so probs around 20-30 pages in 2-3 hours. I think the average is like 15 pages per hour for most people. Plus if you already know the content, it should be faster. Whereas, if you have no idea and are just straight up just rote memorising, it's a lil longer.
Yeh, if you already have a strong conceptual understanding of the topic as a whole its pretty easy to memorise the specifics
 

dumNerd

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Probs not compared to others in my grade but my notes were usually two columned, font size 8-9 and double sided (no images, images would be on a separate thing) and condensed af so that my brain would think im memorising less pages so probs around 20-30 pages in 2-3 hours. I think the average is like 15 pages per hour for most people. Plus if you already know the content, it should be faster. Whereas, if you have no idea and are just straight up just rote memorising, it's a lil longer.
LMAO believe me average isn't 15 pages in an hour
 

angie_c@_@

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I've noticed that whenever I try to rote learn content, it only stays within my short-term memory and I tend to forget it in a few days. What should I do after my "memorisation session" to ensure that I keep this content in my long-term memory? I can't memorise 60+ pages of notes in the couple days before the exam. I have my first internal 3 and a half weeks from now. Thanks.
what's your learning style! that's sooooo important.

I used to study by reading but turns out, I'm a visual learner. So for system based projects (like sciences), I draw lots of diagrams with lots of arrows and that sticks together.

For things like memorising English essays I just wrote it out like 10 times because seeing my own writing is really helpful as I remember the "shape" of my essay.

One of the girls from the year above recorded herself reading things out and listened to it while she was jogging.

A lot of my uni friends use things like anki to memorise words for language studies.

But yes :) figure out your learning style and memorising becomes easier
 

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