Memory prompts and aids can make your revision much more effective. By Jackie Durham, education and training consultant, CIMA.
Here are some tips to help you learn and remember what you have learned from your revision.
Start by making sure you have a good basic background in the subject area. The more you know and understand generally, the better you will be able to assimilate, remember and apply new subject matter. Try to relate new subject matter to what you already know or have experienced.
Organise your revision topics into meaningful groups or blocks, so that you can identify relationships and underlying patterns.
Make sure you understand what you're studying and look out for anything that seems counterintuitive to you - you are less likely to remember something that does not seem logical or that you don't agree with.
Understand the difference between short term memory and long term memory.
If you cram your revision, you will remember information for a short time, but you will not learn enough to thoroughly understand it - which is the point at which it enters your long term memory. The CIMA syllabus is progressive with each level building on topics and techniques from previous ones, so it’s vital that all the subjects you have studied are well embedded in your long term memory.
Techniques
Mnemonics are basically tricks used to enhance and aid memory. Mnemonic techniques are based on associations between easy-to-remember sequences of data, such as letters and numbers – the human mind finds it much easier to remember insignificant data if it is attached to meaningful information in a personal or spatial way. Popular mnemonic tricks include:
Acronyms are words usually formed from the first letters of a group of words. It doesn’t seem to matter how nonsensical or convoluted the acronym created - it will still help us remember.
Rhymes are very powerful in that they facilitate what is known as acoustic encoding to help the brain remember. A good example is the English grammar rule, 'i before e except after c’.
Chunking is also a very powerful technique which experts say most of us use naturally when faced with lists of numbers to remember. We group items or numbers together into meaningful chunks - for example, most of us will break a long telephone number down into three 3-4 digit chunks.
Imagery helps those with a ‘visual’ memory. It can be used to stimulate the brain by creating vivid images of the items to be remembered and then linking them together using a mental visualisation. Startling or amusing images can really help. For example, World Memory Champion, Ben Pridmore (an accountant by the way!), uses images from Loony Toons cartoons and The Simpsons to create memorable visual images. He also uses a range of 'journeys' (see Method of Loci below), enhanced by his visual images.
The Method of Loci is an ancient Greek memory technique which has been adapted to form the basis of many modern mnemonic devices. At its most basic, it involves associating each item to be remembered with a specific location in a place with which you are very familiar, for example your house or your journey to work. So, for example, one item might be associated with the kitchen, one with the hallway and so on. When you want to retrieve information from your memory, you simply take a mental walk through your house, 'picking up' each piece of information along the way. This can enable us to remember much more complex and detailed threads of information.
There’s nothing intrinsically different about the brains of people with good memories, they have just trained them well. Memory champions such as Ben Pridmore have developed the area of their brains associated with spatial navigation, the hippocampus. This is the area we use when thinking about the way we walk or drive to a real location.
Links
Mind Tools
Brainboxx
Guide to effective study
Contact us
You can contact us with your feedback and suggestions for Velocity at velocity@cimaglobal.com.
October 2009