Many people make the mistake of thinking the human brain is a photocopier: that if you just stare at something hard enough there’ll suddenly be a bright light and it’ll be instantly copied exactly into your mind. But we have eyes, not scanners, and our brains are already full of all kinds of other information.
Using that information can make studying easier!
Separating your “serious work” from things you enjoy is a mental mistake. Because we easily remember things we enjoy. There are people who complain about memorizing one page of chemical components but can explain the entire Game of Thrones from start to finish with passionate asides about how they think it should have ended, with complete footnotes and references to events in earlier series and even the books. Rerouting some of that mental energy can make your exam easier and mark higher.
If there’s something you’re struggling to remember, take a minute to make a connection with something easier. I remember that a red Doppler shift means moving to lower frequency because a red battery on my phone means its low power. How do I remember that this “low” means frequency instead of wavelength? Frequency, phone, frequency, phone. They have the same sound so it makes sense.
Another example is breaking up force components for a block on a slope. The weight mg acts directly down, and the sine component mgsin(theta) acts down the slope. Instead of memorizing the trigonometric derivation involving three triangles, I just say “sine slides down the slope”. sssssss, sounds like a snake, the only Parseltongue tip in physics. (The Harry Potter schools are otherwise truly terrible at scientific laws).
Your brain already contains countless references to books, TV series, songs, sports, an immense archive of things you already know for sure. Things you remembered easily, automatically, because you didn’t think of them as work in the first place. Using the same attitude can make studying so much easier. Stop thinking of it as a big block of work! Break it up into bits and pieces, allow your brain to enjoy making connections, and wherever you can make it more fun for yourself. Connecting new ideas to those with little rhymes, analogies, acronyms, pictures, anything, it all helps to hold the ideas in your head until they can stand on your own. And working out ways to connect the two is an imaginative break during a day of studying!
Using that information can make studying easier!
Separating your “serious work” from things you enjoy is a mental mistake. Because we easily remember things we enjoy. There are people who complain about memorizing one page of chemical components but can explain the entire Game of Thrones from start to finish with passionate asides about how they think it should have ended, with complete footnotes and references to events in earlier series and even the books. Rerouting some of that mental energy can make your exam easier and mark higher.
If there’s something you’re struggling to remember, take a minute to make a connection with something easier. I remember that a red Doppler shift means moving to lower frequency because a red battery on my phone means its low power. How do I remember that this “low” means frequency instead of wavelength? Frequency, phone, frequency, phone. They have the same sound so it makes sense.
Hogwarts can help with physics.
Another example is breaking up force components for a block on a slope. The weight mg acts directly down, and the sine component mgsin(theta) acts down the slope. Instead of memorizing the trigonometric derivation involving three triangles, I just say “sine slides down the slope”. sssssss, sounds like a snake, the only Parseltongue tip in physics. (The Harry Potter schools are otherwise truly terrible at scientific laws).
Your brain already contains countless references to books, TV series, songs, sports, an immense archive of things you already know for sure. Things you remembered easily, automatically, because you didn’t think of them as work in the first place. Using the same attitude can make studying so much easier. Stop thinking of it as a big block of work! Break it up into bits and pieces, allow your brain to enjoy making connections, and wherever you can make it more fun for yourself. Connecting new ideas to those with little rhymes, analogies, acronyms, pictures, anything, it all helps to hold the ideas in your head until they can stand on your own. And working out ways to connect the two is an imaginative break during a day of studying!
