Top five memorisation techniques for students

Jorjeena: Even pretending to teach or having an imaginary audience can have desirable effects.

“ALAMAK! What is the answer to this?” Ever been there before, especially during an exam?

It was a frequent encounter for me until I discovered these memorisation techniques which I hope will come in handy for those of you struggling to cope with remembering factual information.

1. Protégé effect

As Roman philosopher Seneca said: “When we teach, we learn.” Even pretending to teach or having an imaginary audience can have desirable effects.

This psychological phenomenon known as the protégé effect can help us improve our motor memory and enhance our social skills.

Going into a “teaching mood” leads us to reading aloud and explaining the material we have been learning. Thus, everything we have previously learnt can be easily memorised.

2. Active recalling

A major obstacle we face with memorisation is forgetfulness. Active recalling can solve that problem, and help in improving our long-term memory retention. Also known as the “testing effect”, it has been proven to be useful by many students.

For every topic we revise, we can prepare a set of questions, be they in the form of flashcards or quizzes, and test ourselves repeatedly on these questions. Studies have shown that it aids in engaging our memory and retrieving lost pieces of information.

3. Mnemonics

As students, we are often required to memorise things in a specific order. Take the periodic table in chemistry for example. The sequence of each element must be memorised in a specific order.

By applying the mnemonic method, which is also known as the “building sentence method”, we can devise a “formula”, or a sentence that is assembled from the first letter of each element. The sentence can be built out of our imagination, thus making the possibilities endless.

Acronyms and abbreviations can also be used for easier and long-term memorisation. This also makes it more fun and interesting.

4. Storytelling

We tend to remember stories more than actual facts, so why not convert facts into a story? The advantage of this method is that anyone can use it.

It allows us to link or relate items in our study materials to ensure that everything is covered. But make sure you understand the historical facts first before turning them into a story form.

That way, your brain will be able to register all the information, which can then be easily retrieved for further use.

5. Mind maps

Visual learners should find this method especially effective.

Mind maps are a method of organising information by its relation to one another.

Study materials are often very dense and compact with information. Thus, breaking the information down into chunks and placing them in mind maps can really help smoothen the study process.

Mind maps are easy to visualise and understand, hence making it simpler to digest the information and memorise it.

This method is also helpful for those who are cramming a large amount of information within a short period as many topics can be covered within a simple mind map.

Jorjeena, 17, a student in Kuala Lumpur, is a participant of the BRATs Young Journalist Programme run by The Star’s Newspaper-in-Education (Star-NiE) team.