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Memory Techniques for Exam Preparation: 10Astonishing Ways to Harness the Power of YourBrain3 June, 2014

One of the biggest fears every student has as they enter the examhall is that their mind will go blank and they will suddenly forgetevery last thing they know.

It’s the stuff of nightmares, but fortunately, it’shighly unlikely to happen. First of all, you’d beamazed what facts start to come flooding back to

Tidying your desk should be top of your to-do list.

you once you pick up a pen and start answering aquestion. Second of all, there are lots of memorytricks you can use that will help you recallinformation in a more formal and structured way.In this article, we’re going to show you just howmuch you can do to commit facts and figures tomemory ready to recall them in exams, and wehope that as well as boosting your confidence, thisshould also ward off those nasty pre-examnightmares!

1. Get organisedBefore we even get started onmemory tricks, there’s somethingfundamental we need to beginwith. If there’s one enemy of agood memory, it’sdisorganisation. A clutteredworking space with unfiled notes(/articles/student-life-easier-read-faster-notes-absorb-information-time.html) here,there and everywhere; a notepadfilled with scrawl on numerousdifferent subjects with noparticular order; a poor computerfiling system. All these spelldisaster for your ability to recallfacts in the exam room. So, start by getting yourself organised. Tidy your room, orwhichever space you’re using for studying. Get your notes organised neatly into differentsubjects. Physically decluttering and bringing about order in your environment has thestrange effect of doing the same to the mind (perhaps there is something in feng shui),making you far better able to cope with memorising and recalling facts.

(/tag/study-skills)2. Mind palacesIf you’re a fan of Sherlock you’re probably already familiar with the concept of a mindpalace, but just in case you aren’t, let’s go over it again. Officially known as the ‘methodof loci’, the memory palace can be used to memorise huge volumes of information, andbest of all, because it’s all down to your imagination, you can constantly expand it. Itworks like this:

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Mind palaces are used in the BBC series Sherlock. Still fromSherlock (BBC, 2010).

An alternative way of remembering the colours of the rainbowis ‘Richard of York gave battle in vain’.

1. Visualise a building or road.Populate your mental image withdetails, such as what you see ineach room or what’s on eitherside of the road.

2. Mentally connect an image ofeach of the features you see –such as a chair in your imaginedhouse, or a tree by the side ofyour imagined road – with amanageable chunk of information(such as a chemical formula).Think about the two together indepth and make sure you’ve really learned the information and its associated image.

3. To recall the information in the exam, simply retrace your steps through the buildingor down the road and pick out the objects you’ve associated with the information.

4. When you want to add additional information to your memory bank, you can simplyadd another room to your imaginary building or take a turn off your imaginary road thatwill house this new information.

This must be a foolproof memory trick because it’s been in around since Greek andRoman times. The Roman orator Cicero, who needed to be able to recall large amountsof information from memory when giving speeches, described them in his treatise onoratory, De Oratore. If it was good enough for him, it’s good enough for us!

3. MnemonicsYou’ll be pleased to hear that theconcept of a mnemonic(/articles/mnemonics-memory-aids-english-language-rules.html) is a lot simpler thanits confusing spelling. It involvestranslating information into analternative form that you’re moreeasily able to remember. Oneway of doing this is by taking thefirst letters of a string ofinformation you want toremember and then using themto create a more memorablephrase that you find easier torecall than the original information. For example, some people remember the points of

Alternatively, ‘My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos’.

the compass with the mnemonic ‘Never Eat Shredded Wheat’ (North East South West).The first letters of the information can also make up a word in their own right, as in thecase of the colours of the rainbow, the mnemonic of which is the name ‘Roy G. Biv’ (Red,Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

4. RhymingPutting information into a rhyme is another way of making it easier to remember. Anexample is the rhyme that helps people remember how many days there are in eachmonth:

30 days hath September, April, June, and November.All the rest have 31Except February my dear son.It has 28 and that is fineBut in Leap Year it has 29.

This may prove a more effective way of memorising bigger chunks of information thanthe mnemonic examples we gave above. Your rhyme could be a little more modern-sounding to help you remember it, or you could use some tried and tested rhymingschemes such as rhyming couplets to help cement facts in your brain. Here’s a trulyterrible example I just made up to help you memorise the order of the planets:

Close to the Sun, hottest andbetween usAre the burning fireballs ofMercury and Venus.

Next come homely Earth thenMars, then gas giants Jupiter andSaturn –Are you starting to see aplanetary pattern?

Icy Uranus and Neptune follow,and, bringing up the rear,Humble Pluto – no longer aplanet – sheds a tear.

As you can see from my embarrassing attempt, you don’t have to be an accomplishedpoet to do it!

5. Making the most of a photographic memoryIf you’re lucky enough to possess a photographic memory, you can make the most of itby combining images with text to reinforce what you’ve learned. This makes it easier torecall the information, because all you have to do is bring to mind the image and you

The only problem with this strategy is that in several years’time, the song you used will come on the radio and you’ll be

belting out French verbs before you know it.

‘Their name liveth for evermore’ the Gateway claims.Was ever an immolation so belied

As these intolerably nameless names?’ – Siegfried Sassoon,

should be able to recall the information. Even if you don’t have a photographic memory,you can apply the same principle. Arrange your notes in a pictorial fashion, such as in aspider diagram (where you have the concept in the middle and arrows pointing out of itto different pieces of information). Then, when you need to recall a particular piece ofinformation, the idea is that you remember whereabouts it was on the page and thatjolts your memory of what it was about.

6. Setting facts and figures to musicAn extension of the rhyming ideais setting your notes to music. Idon’t know about you, but I findit much easier to remember thelyrics to my favourite songs thanI do to recall dry informationsuch as the names and dates ofthe English monarchs or Romanemperors. If you’re struggling tocommit a chain of information tomemory, try putting a tune to it.Even a rap will do! Then all youneed to do is remember the tuneand the words should comeflooding back. To make it easierto recall, you could try using atune you already know – perhapseven a children’s nursery rhyme, if you can bear to associate a childhood favourite withyour present exams! As long as you’re guaranteed to remember it, though, anythinggoes.

7. Experience things practicallyBy ‘experience things practically’,we mean: don’t just learn frombooks. It can be very difficult toremember things if your onlyexperience of them is readingthem in a book. To take anextreme example, you couldn’tlearn to ride a bike simply byreading about it; you need tolearn by doing it. If what you’relearning about can beexperienced in person, try to doso, because this is a much betterway of learning and the

‘On Passing the New Menin Gate’

Simon was a chemist’s son,Simon is no more,

For what he thought was H O,Was H SO

information is far more likely tostick with you. For example, ifyou’re learning about a scientificexperiment, try to do it in real life rather than simply reading about it in a textbook. Thatway, when it comes to the exam, you’ll have practical experience to draw on and youcan recall what really happened when you undertook the experiment. Similarly, if you’restudying a piece of music in A-level music, try to play it on an instrument if you can – itwill give you a far deeper appreciation of it. This trick can even apply to Englishliterature; if you’re studying war poetry, for example, try visiting a war museum – oreven what’s left of the trenches in northern France (/articles/summer-travel.html) – andreciting the poem you’re studying in such an environment. It will give it much greatermeaning, help you understand and appreciate it in the spirit and surroundings in whichit was intended, and help you emotionally engage with what you’re learning – thusmaking it easier for you to recall information about it in the exam room.

8. Utilise your sense of smellYour sense of smell can be a powerful memory aid, as you’ll know if you’ve everexperienced that odd sensation of smelling something for the first time in years andinstantly being transported back to the moment you last smelt it. You could try usingthis to your advantage by dabbing your wrist with a particular perfume or aftershaveeach time you study material for a particular exam. Then, when that exam comes round,you put on the same perfume or aftershave and (theoretically) it should help transportyou back to the time you were learning the information in the first place. You could tryusing different scents for different subjects, wearing the corresponding scent for therelevant exam.

9. Make up a storyTo help your brain absorb biggerchunks of information, anothertrick you could try is to break theinformation down and make up astory linking together each pieceof information. It’s a little like thememory palace idea we discussedearlier in this article, but it playswith the imagination to a greaterextent because the story youmake up doesn’t have to bespatially limited in your mind. Forexample, if you need tomemorise a complicatedchemical formula, you couldname the molecules with humannames beginning with the same

2

2 4.

Getting a good night’s sleep is vital for the consolidation oflong-term knowledge in your brain.

letter (Carol = Chlorine, forexample) and make up a little story in which the actions of the characters mirror thoseof the molecules in the formula. This can be a remarkably effective method of learningtrickier, drier information, as it helps to bring it to life a bit and gives it a more humantouch that makes it easier to relate to.

 

10. Get a good night’s sleepIt may not sound like it, but oneof the best things you can do tohelp you remember things is toget a good night’s sleep – notjust the night before the exam,but every night. We’re not justsaying that because getting theright amount of sleep will helpyou perform better, retain mentalagility and ward off stress andtiredness. We’re saying it becauseit’s when you’re sleeping thatyour brain performs the vital taskof converting facts from short-term memory into long-termmemory. During the course of agood night’s sleep, your brainprocesses the information you’velearnt during the day and storesit, meaning that you’re far more likely to be able to recall it than if you barely slept. So,get the recommended eight hours’ sleep each and every night. Sleep may feel like aluxury you can’t afford right now, but believe us, it’s one of the most important thingsyou can do for exam success!

So there we have it: ten simple tricks and tips that will greatly help you to increase yourcapacity for learning all kinds of facts and figures, no matter how much you’ve struggledwith them up to now. Rest assured that your brain is more than capable of housing thevast swathes of information you need to learn in order to pass your exams: you just haveto make it easier for it to absorb more than usual during the busy exam period!

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Image credits: banner (https://www.flickr.com/photos/44568283@N02/4097561067/in/photostream/); desk

(http://www.flickr.com/photos/flannol/4235351338/); Sherlock (http://finalproblem.tumblr.com/post/17447352813/a-

man-should-keep-his-little-brain-attic-stocked); rainbow (https://www.flickr.com/photos/rockyraybell/10168072886/);

planets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Planets2013.jpg); radio (https://www.flickr.com/photos/johanl/6125230384);

Menin Gate (https://www.flickr.com/photos/colorgrinder/2101440685); chemistry

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lab_glassware.jpg); bed (https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovemaegan/4950471116). 

5 Responses to “Memory Techniques for ExamPreparation: 10 Astonishing Ways to Harness thePower of Your Brain”

1. July 14, 2014 at 2:18 pm, Alexander (http://www.dwu.intranet.ac.pg) said:

Hi thanks for publishing this article its been a great help to me…

Reply (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/memory-tricks-exam-success.html?replytocom=14371#respond)

2. October 21, 2014 at 6:08 pm, R.GLadwin Gabriel said:

Very useful

Reply (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/memory-tricks-exam-success.html?replytocom=14372#respond)

3. March 20, 2015 at 12:04 pm, nk gupta said:

nice tips

Reply (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/memory-tricks-exam-success.html?replytocom=21723#respond)

4. July 13, 2015 at 1:35 pm, Mathew said:

Wow, fantastic tips. God bless you!

Reply (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/memory-tricks-exam-success.html?replytocom=35291#respond)

5. August 30, 2015 at 8:15 am, Mark said:

Nice set of memorization tips you have here. The “sense of smell” tip is intriguing. Notsure how effective it will actually be , but I will defiantly give it a try

Reply (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk/articles/memory-tricks-exam-success.html?replytocom=38001#respond)

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