5 Memorisation Techniques

Memorisation techniques are often overlooked, but so important to succeed. These techniques will be extremely useful at some point in your life, and you may even be doing some right now without even realising. In particular, this post is aimed at anyone taking exams, as these helped me through my exams.

This blog will be based on the following 5 techniques. I found them to be successful for me, and hope they can help you in some way too:

• REPETITION (ideally spaced repetition)
• Acronyms (as silly as possible)
• Make Notes, revise these last minute.
• Recite Notes
• Don’t Burnout, work smarter not harder

The first and most important technique to memorise something is repetition. You’re never going to remember a fact or concept by reading it once. In fact, it could take up to 50 repetitions to stick. If you’re doing exams, you’re going to have to memorise so much, so it will probably take around 50 repetitions.

You should also consider spaced repetitions — which means you constantly go over what you are learning over a longer period of time. For example, let say you’re revising for your English GCSE’s, and you need to remember a fact about a particular poem. You want to be revisiting this on the same day you learn it, the next day, a week later and so on, until you are completely confident that you know it.

Once you begin to revisit a sheet or revision document, you start to develop a photographic memory of it over time. You will start to picture the sheet when you’re in an exam, which will massively help.

Secondly, Acronyms can be quite useful. Acronyms make it easier to remember lists, or step-by-step processes — and can be made more memorable by making them more weird.

This is one example of an acronym, instead of revising the reactivity series as it is, remember it with a memorable sentence instead. I generally found that the sillier and more unrealistic the sentence, the more memorable.

If you are more of a visual learner, then diagrams will be extremely useful. I’ve found one of the diagrams I used for revising the cycle of how blood moved through the heart:

Simplified diagrams like the one above are so easy to remember in exams — especially ones that are multi-coloured.

Next is Making Notes — another really useful tip that links to repetition. If you are struggling to make a certain thing stick in your brain, you should make a note of it. Dedicate a sheet or document to everything you are struggling to remember. Right before you go into an exam, make sure you revise this sheet, as it will be fresh in your mind. This is something I have used in every public exam I have sat — on the day of my exam, only revise the things I have found hardest to memorise, and what I’m most likely to lose marks on. You also tend to revise things better after writing then down, rather than typing.

Fourth Tip — Recite your notes out loud. Test your own understanding. You can recite these to yourself, or even better, recite your notes to a friend or family member. To do well in exams, you need to make sure you understand what you are learning, this makes it a lot easier to memorise. If you can recite what you have learned out loud on a different day to when you learned, you can be confident that you know the content. Also, get someone to ask you questions based on your notes, put yourself on the spot — as this is what an exam will be like.

Finally, I would urge you to not burn yourself out. If you’re burned out, you will never be able to learn anything new. Aim to work smarter, not harder. Try find a time of day where you peak, when you are fully engaged, and dedicate this time of day to learning the hardest subjects. If you work well in the morning, wake up early. If you work better at night, stay up and work. You don’t want to be working for 8 hours non-stop, take breaks. In your breaks, try not to watch Netflix, but maybe watch an educational YouTube video. These can be entertaining, whilst you’re not actively working, but you’re learning at the same time. Working smart, and efficiently is the key to succeeding in your exams.