Memorization Techniques

[Allegro]

I was wondering what are the ways that you can remember stuff, either for test taking or everyday life? For me, it's repetition hands down - Going back to certain things and repeating them over and over. This works best when you practice music or learning a language.

For remembering events in my life, I find that certain smells can bring back the fondest of memories. Everytime I smell a certain fragrance or odor, I can almost distinctly remember that event as if I was there the moment I sensed it.

Ah, the beauty of the human brain.

[Puguni]

I usually write stuff down or make a little song or rhyme. My memory is surprisingly good, if I may say, and it doesn't take much for me.

[Locke]

*huggles PDA*

[Yumie]

I either drill it, or come up with some stupid way to remember it. When I say "some stupid way to remember it", I mean that I come up with some pointless acronym or song or something like that, and I memorize it that way. That works best for lists. Another thing that helps me sometimes is to come up with hand motions. It all depends on what I'm trying to remember. If it's poetry or a short story or something, I just have to repeat it a few times and it sticks forever. I still remember poems I learned in the 6th and 7th grades.

And from my ramblings, you can probably infer that I memorize in a myriad of ways. . .

[Mr. SmartyPants]

For vocab tests or quizzes. I tend to find a word that will remind me of the word and definition. A weird process but it works for me

[Debitt]

Writing things down always helps me memorize things - I'm very into written word, and it spills over into my studying techniques. I often write out dozens of flashcards to study from - and most of the time I learn more from actually writing them than I do from practicing them.

Another memorization technique that we used in my psychology class involved taking, for example, a list of words and making up a story about them. THe more personal, the easier it is to remember. I still remember one of the lists we used to practice this technique, because my story was about one of my own characters.

[Allegro]

When I say "some stupid way to remember it", I mean that I come up with some pointless acronym or song or something like that...

Another memorization technique that we used in my psychology class involved taking, for example, a list of words and making up a story about them. THe more personal, the easier it is to remember.

Both of these are really good tips. I guess if you were to sum the two up, the more "vivid" the connection you have with what you're studying, the more easier your mind will recall such information.

Psychology also says that whatever association that isn't normal in your life (a scary\shocking\embarassing event), the will always be the things you'll remember. Stories and pointless things do help a lot.

[Gypsy]

I've read that scent can be the strongest memory trigger, like Allegro mentioned. It didn't help me with school, but smells will unearth the random memories in my head.

[Lynx]

i use flashcards

[TurkishMonky]

i usually come up with a rhyme, action word, or random noun to associate with somthing I want to remember. Thankfully, though, most classes i have had don't require as much memorization as logic and thinking. (i have an excelent short term memory, but am really bad at remembering things for more then a day or so.)

[Doe Johnson]

I generally make up a weird correlation. An example is when I took the CAT test and had to match one made up word with the word rake. The word (I can't remember it right now, this was like 6 years ago) made me think of a fox(I think) character in a Redwall book that always wore the skin of a wolf. The wolf made me think of the moon. The moon made me think of Moonraker. Moonraker made me think of rake. Thus the word was connected to the word rake.

I memorized car tags by methods like this, when they are in the form XXX ###. If the first X was C and the first # was 3, I would think of C being the 3rd letter of the alphabet. P and 9 also went together because they looked similar. How far apart the letters were in the alphabet could also play a role. And if there was no letter after it, one could associate that with 8 because it looks like the symbol for infinity.

Some of the weirder ones were things for remembering amendments. Like Jordan's number when he played for Washington or something like that.