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Home (https://www.oxford-royale.co.uk) Memory Techniques for Exam Preparation: 10

Astonishing Ways to Harness the Power of Your Brain

Memory Techniques for Exam Preparation: 10

Astonishing Ways to Harness the Power of Your
Brain
3 June, 2014

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

You should also

read

Its the stuff of nightmares, but fortunately, its

highly unlikely to happen. First of all, youd be
amazed what facts start to come flooding back to

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you once you pick up a pen and start answering a

question. Second of all, there are lots of memory
tricks you can use that will help you recall
information in a more formal and structured way.
In this article, were going to show you just how
much you can do to commit facts and figures to
memory ready to recall them in exams, and we
hope that as well as boosting your confidence, this
should also ward off those nasty pre-exam
nightmares!

1. Get organised
Before we even get started on
memory tricks, theres something
fundamental we need to begin
with. If theres one enemy of a
good memory, its
disorganisation. A cluttered
working space with unfiled notes
(/articles/student-life-easierread-faster-notes-absorbinformation-time.html) here,
there and everywhere; a notepad
filled with scrawl on numerous
different subjects with no
Tidying your desk should be top of your to-do list.
particular order; a poor computer
filing system. All these spell
disaster for your ability to recall
facts in the exam room. So, start by getting yourself organised. Tidy your room, or
whichever space youre using for studying. Get your notes organised neatly into different
subjects. Physically decluttering and bringing about order in your environment has the
strange 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 palaces
If youre a fan of Sherlock youre probably already familiar with the concept of a mind
palace, but just in case you arent, lets go over it again. Officially known as the method
of loci, the memory palace can be used to memorise huge volumes of information, and
best of all, because its all down to your imagination, you can constantly expand it. It
works like this:

1. Visualise a building or road.

Populate your mental image with
details, such as what you see in
each room or whats on either
side of the road.
2. Mentally connect an image of
each of the features you see
such as a chair in your imagined
house, or a tree by the side of
your imagined road with a
Mind palaces are used in the BBC series Sherlock. Still from
Sherlock (BBC, 2010).
manageable chunk of information
(such as a chemical formula).
Think about the two together in
depth and make sure youve really learned the information and its associated image.
3. To recall the information in the exam, simply retrace your steps through the building
or down the road and pick out the objects youve associated with the information.
4. When you want to add additional information to your memory bank, you can simply
add another room to your imaginary building or take a turn off your imaginary road that
will house this new information.
This must be a foolproof memory trick because its been in around since Greek and
Roman times. The Roman orator Cicero, who needed to be able to recall large amounts
of information from memory when giving speeches, described them in his treatise on
oratory, De Oratore. If it was good enough for him, its good enough for us!

3. Mnemonics
Youll be pleased to hear that the
concept of a mnemonic
(/articles/mnemonics-memoryaids-english-languagerules.html) is a lot simpler than
its confusing spelling. It involves
translating information into an
alternative form that youre more
easily able to remember. One
way of doing this is by taking the
first letters of a string of
information you want to
An alternative way of remembering the colours of the rainbow
is Richard of York gave battle in vain.
remember and then using them
to create a more memorable
phrase that you find easier to
recall than the original information. For example, some people remember the points of

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 the
case of the colours of the rainbow, the mnemonic of which is the name Roy G. Biv (Red,
Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet).

4. Rhyming
Putting information into a rhyme is another way of making it easier to remember. An
example is the rhyme that helps people remember how many days there are in each
month:
30 days hath September, April, June, and November.
All the rest have 31
Except February my dear son.
It has 28 and that is fine
But in Leap Year it has 29.
This may prove a more effective way of memorising bigger chunks of information than
the mnemonic examples we gave above. Your rhyme could be a little more modernsounding to help you remember it, or you could use some tried and tested rhyming
schemes such as rhyming couplets to help cement facts in your brain. Heres a truly
terrible example I just made up to help you memorise the order of the planets:
Close to the Sun, hottest and
between us
Are the burning fireballs of
Mercury and Venus.
Next come homely Earth then
Mars, then gas giants Jupiter and
Saturn
Are you starting to see a
planetary pattern?
Icy Uranus and Neptune follow,
and, bringing up the rear,
Humble Pluto no longer a
planet sheds a tear.

Alternatively, My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nachos.

As you can see from my embarrassing attempt, you dont have to be an accomplished
poet to do it!

5. Making the most of a photographic memory

If youre lucky enough to possess a photographic memory, you can make the most of it
by combining images with text to reinforce what youve learned. This makes it easier to
recall the information, because all you have to do is bring to mind the image and you

should be able to recall the information. Even if you dont have a photographic memory,
you can apply the same principle. Arrange your notes in a pictorial fashion, such as in a
spider diagram (where you have the concept in the middle and arrows pointing out of it
to different pieces of information). Then, when you need to recall a particular piece of
information, the idea is that you remember whereabouts it was on the page and that
jolts your memory of what it was about.

6. Setting facts and figures to music

An extension of the rhyming idea
is setting your notes to music. I
dont know about you, but I find
it much easier to remember the
lyrics to my favourite songs than
I do to recall dry information
such as the names and dates of
the English monarchs or Roman
emperors. If youre struggling to
commit a chain of information to
memory, try putting a tune to it.
Even a rap will do! Then all you
The only problem with this strategy is that in several years
need to do is remember the tune
time, the song you used will come on the radio and youll be
and the words should come
belting out French verbs before you know it.
flooding back. To make it easier
to recall, you could try using a
tune you already know perhaps
even a childrens nursery rhyme, if you can bear to associate a childhood favourite with
your present exams! As long as youre guaranteed to remember it, though, anything
goes.

7. Experience things practically

By experience things practically,
we mean: dont just learn from
books. It can be very difficult to
remember things if your only
experience of them is reading
them in a book. To take an
extreme example, you couldnt
learn to ride a bike simply by
reading about it; you need to
learn by doing it. If what youre
learning about can be
experienced in person, try to do
so, because this is a much better
way of learning and the

Their name liveth for evermore the Gateway claims.

Was ever an immolation so belied
As these intolerably nameless names? Siegfried Sassoon,

On Passing the New Menin Gate

information is far more likely to
stick with you. For example, if
youre learning about a scientific
experiment, try to do it in real life rather than simply reading about it in a textbook. That
way, when it comes to the exam, youll have practical experience to draw on and you
can recall what really happened when you undertook the experiment. Similarly, if youre
studying a piece of music in A-level music, try to play it on an instrument if you can it
will give you a far deeper appreciation of it. This trick can even apply to English
literature; if youre studying war poetry, for example, try visiting a war museum or
even whats left of the trenches in northern France (/articles/summer-travel.html) and
reciting the poem youre studying in such an environment. It will give it much greater
meaning, help you understand and appreciate it in the spirit and surroundings in which
it was intended, and help you emotionally engage with what youre learning thus
making it easier for you to recall information about it in the exam room.

8. Utilise your sense of smell

Your sense of smell can be a powerful memory aid, as youll know if youve ever
experienced that odd sensation of smelling something for the first time in years and
instantly being transported back to the moment you last smelt it. You could try using
this to your advantage by dabbing your wrist with a particular perfume or aftershave
each 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 transport
you back to the time you were learning the information in the first place. You could try
using different scents for different subjects, wearing the corresponding scent for the
relevant exam.

9. Make up a story
To help your brain absorb bigger
chunks of information, another
trick you could try is to break the
information down and make up a
story linking together each piece
of information. Its a little like the
memory palace idea we discussed
earlier in this article, but it plays
with the imagination to a greater
extent because the story you
make up doesnt have to be
spatially limited in your mind. For
example, if you need to
memorise a complicated
chemical formula, you could
name the molecules with human
names beginning with the same

Simon was a chemists son,

Simon is no more,
For what he thought was H2O,
Was H2SO4.

letter (Carol = Chlorine, for

example) and make up a little story in which the actions of the characters mirror those
of the molecules in the formula. This can be a remarkably effective method of learning
trickier, drier information, as it helps to bring it to life a bit and gives it a more human
touch that makes it easier to relate to.

10. Get a good nights sleep

It may not sound like it, but one
of the best things you can do to
help you remember things is to
get a good nights sleep not
just the night before the exam,
but every night. Were not just
saying that because getting the
right amount of sleep will help
you perform better, retain mental
agility and ward off stress and
tiredness. Were saying it because
its when youre sleeping that
your brain performs the vital task
of converting facts from shortterm memory into long-term
memory. During the course of a
Getting a good nights sleep is vital for the consolidation of
long-term knowledge in your brain.
good nights sleep, your brain
processes the information youve
learnt during the day and stores
it, meaning that youre 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 a
luxury you cant afford right now, but believe us, its one of the most important things
you can do for exam success!
So there we have it: ten simple tricks and tips that will greatly help you to increase your
capacity for learning all kinds of facts and figures, no matter how much youve struggled
with them up to now. Rest assured that your brain is more than capable of housing the
vast swathes of information you need to learn in order to pass your exams: you just have
to 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/aman-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 Exam

Preparation: 10 Astonishing Ways to Harness the
Power 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. Not
sure 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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