An
invaluable skill to develop as a student, a good memory is useful not only in
the context of study (where it is nonetheless very useful!) but in every area
of a lifestyle which by its very nature encourages you to juggle as many
different and competing interests as you can. Having a good memory can help you
to recall names and faces, favourite people and places, and on top of all that it
comes in very handy when revising for exams.
Despite
its many applications, we will here focus on the uses of memory in relation to
academic work. Most students who perform well in classes, labs, written work
and exams do so in large part thanks to their ability to store and recall
valuable data and ideas. While the ability to apply what you have learned is
equally vital, it is little use without some initial knowledge upon which to
base your ideas. We can divide the subject of improving memory into two categories
– improvising short-term recall skills, and improving your capacity for
long-term learning.
Where long-term learning is concerned, what is important is to commit information to memory and retain it in the back of your mind where you can access it – almost spontaneously – at a later date. There are various approaches to storing information in this way. Some people prefer to boil it down to its essentials, learning by wrote a few statements of fact or equations which relate to a broader range of knowledge. By memorizing a few key facts, you can train your mind to trigger the recollection of something more detailed. Others learn information as an actor learns lines for a play – repeating it over and over, often just before going to sleep, in an attempt to ingrain it on the mind. By far the best method of making something stick is to use it over and over – in conversation, in your work, in everyday life. Write out key sentences and leave them scattered around the house; read them as you pass by every day and allow them to sink into your subconscious.
The idea is to learn something so entirely that decades from now you will still be able to recite it, and there can be no better way to do that than to refer to it exhaustively over a period of time – long-term learning, as the name suggests, requires a certain investment of time.
By contrast, short-term memory or ‘instant recall’ refers to the process of cramming as much information into the mind as it can hold for a short time and then releasing it. This is often a feature of revising for exams – no matter how knowledgeable you are, and how much you can recall in your long-term memory, there is nothing to be lost by cramming a few extra facts at the last minute. Here the key is often to seize upon particularly striking devices – the pneumonic, the rhyme, the song lyric – something catchy, and associate them with particular facts or formulae which you need to commit to memory. Again, repeat yourself to the point of exhaustion. Try writing a quotation down some fifty times – chances are you’ll know it by the end of the exercise, but chances are equally high you’ll forget it within days if you cease to think about it for any length of time.
Ultimately, the memory is rather like a muscle in the body – the more you work it, and the more demands you place upon it, the stronger, faster and more responsive it becomes. Like a muscle, however, it can be strained or even torn under excess demand, so perhaps the best approach is to split your learning between a long-term recollection of the most important material and short-term cramming for the ancillary data.
The balance between the two will always be an individual one – some people are blessed with particularly capacious, or even photographic memories. These are not characteristics which you can necessarily learn, but by challenging your memory and keeping it in good working order – filling it with trivia when there’s nothing else to use – you will keep it in good shape for the work it will ultimately be called upon to do.
If nothing else, you’ll be a whiz when it comes to pub quizzes!
Hope the information we have gathered here were useful for you and get your to the right direction. We remind you, that you always could back and read again about A Guide to Online Career Education, Online Education – Don’t Sign Up Before You Research, The Advantages of Online Degree, New to the College Career? Here’s What To Do and Improve Your Memory, Study Success. We wish you to have a great journey to your adult life with all study and job stuff.
As Monica once said: “It ****, but you will like it!”.