46 Memory Tips, Tricks,
and Techniques
(Mnemosyn is the Greek Goddess of memory)
1. Repetition – everybody does it and it works
2. Here’s how to increase the number of repetitions using the same energy: When you read, read aloud onto a recorder (I use my Iphone recording app but you decide) and play it back while you are driving.
i. Hearing it when you say it will make the sound go out of your mouth and into your ears where it will be dispersed to the different parts of your brain.
3. If you want to remember something, it is vital that you pay attention! Do that by trying to note the meaning behind what you want to remember. Pick out the meaning by rewording it in the fewest possible words and ELABORATE what you want to remember (see it on an elephant with a clown suit on).
4.
5. Study in a place and position that is like the place you will take the test for it (not sitting in the living room all folded up with legs underneath you). Remember that when you go to the kitchen to get something and forget what you came in for, you go back to where you were to remember. This means that when you are being asked a question on a test, the way to remember the answer is to go back to the place you learned it (ok maybe you have to do that mentally but it is a technique you should practice).
6. Use emotion to cement your memories by linking them with emotional things (use all 5 senses – especially smell). Emotion is the gateway to learning. The emotion I use the most is amusement – when I want to remember something, I turn it into something funny. For example,
7. Sing what you want to remember. 2&2 is 4, 4&4 is 8, The square of the hypotenuse
8. Use the “Lunsford 27” – read your thing to remember 9 times, say it without looking 9 times and then say it as fast as you can while trying to do something distracting.
9. The time you study is important – go over what you want to remember just before going to sleep.
10. To increase vocabulary: make up sentences using each word you want to learn and use the words in conversation and when people don't understand you, explain.
a. This will attach experiences to your word.
b. Hearing what you say will make the sound go into your brain in more places.
11. Overlearn! Make questions up that you would write if you were the professor and test yourself regularly.
12. Find multiple choice questions on line and practice them: Quizlet
13. Make learning a game that someone wins (competition for highest grade). Play a game with someone in your class. Use the made up questions (see #3) in a game show with buzzer to see who can answer the question faster.
14. When you want to learn a process with steps, make an association with things around your house (called Mind Maps) or with another process. For example, if the first thing you do in the morning is brush your teeth, then associate the first thing on the list with that.
15. Find someone who wants to study and work together (beware finding someone who is attractive).
16. Practice memory tricks to show people (this will, in time, convince you your memory’s good)
17. Paper in half vertically with questions on left and answers on right.
18. Learn both forwards and backwards. (e.g., What is Hello in French? _____ and What is Bonjour in English? _______
19. Do your best to find out what the exam will require you to know so that you can focus on specific aspects of the material.
20. Try to get hold of old exams from the professor whose class you are in.
21. Learn with time pressure. Use a timer and give yourself a specific amount of time to absorb so you can pass a test of your own making.
22. Relational circles/squares/triangles can help if you draw the relation a number of times ("Muscle memory")
23. Mnemonics will help remember things. Knuckles show the months that have 31 days.
24. Rhymes help you remember more.30 Days has September, April, June, and November, all the rest have 31.
25. Use a card to hide other information so you walk slowly through info without being overwhelmed with all you have yet to read.
26. Do homework twice and look over what you did well and poorly just before bed.
27. Do twice as much homework as you are asked to do.
28. You learn best when you are teaching. Find someone to teach.
29. Record questions and answers (leave a 5 second gap) so you can listen to them on the way to work/school.
30. Learn to underline only the meaning of a sentence while you read it so that when you go back to read again, you only read what is important. For example:
31. When you get an exam back, go through everything you go wrong and try to understand why you got them wrong. If you find that you did not know the info, you know what to do. If you find your read the question incorrectly, you know what to do next time. If you find that you thought the question's answer was something else, correct your thinking. Nothing is worse than making the same kind of mistakes on different exams when you could correct them.
32. Read in advance of each class and learn the material as though you are going to be the one giving the lecture to the class. When you go into class this prepared, the lecture will be repetition rather than "New" to you. Also, you can give valuable input to the class.
33. Offer your services in the college tutoring services when you do well in a class. I tutored math, CLAST, algebra, geometry, and whatever else I could.
34. Try to apply whatever you have to learn to "Real Life" - if you can't think of a reason to know the area of a circle then you will find it difficult to remember.
35. Learn memory pegs, mnemonics and any other memory tricks you can find to help you. These may be visual, kinesthetic or auditory.
36. see each topic (and even word) as a building block to who you are
37. Have an attitude that encourages deep storage of information as well as quick retrieval of that information.
38. Learn to speed read.
39. Use chunking (especially with numbers)
40. Memorize formulae and apply them over and over until you do it without thinking.
41. Turn your notes into a summary story.
42. Use phrases to learn lists you need to know. "Richard Of York Gave Battle In Vain" and “Please Excuse My Poor Aunt Sally”
43. Use the first letter of each word to make a new word: OCEAN
44. Go through the alphabet. If you can’t remember something, say you know that there is a word meaning “alter” but you just can’t think of it, then go through the letters one by one (not forgetting the “ch,” “th,” and “st” type terms to finally find the word you are looking for is “change.”
45. Use the rhyming trick to remember a list in order. 1 (run), 2 (Blue), 3(tree), 4(door), 5(hive), 6(sticks), 7(heaven), 8(gate), 9(sign), 10(pen)