Study smart simply means studying in the most efficient and effective way for you. For me, these are my way of studying smart:
1. Take personal notes.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
3. Finishing your assignments early.
4. Love your exams.
5. Manage your time.
6. Keep a Healthy Body.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
Do not merely memorize facts, try to understand it. If you just memorize it, there is no guarantee that you will understand it. However, if you understand it, there is a good chance that you can retain it in your memory. Of course understanding and memorizing at the same time will be even greater. However, if you have to choose one, understand first, and the memorizing part will come easy. That is what I meant by the superiority of understanding over memorizing.
Unfortunately for many students, they spend most of their times in memorizing facts and numbers. Sometimes this is done with elaborate methods and complex associations. I sometime wonder, if they can apply such complex ways of memorizing, why don’t they just apply the principles in understanding the facts instead. My memory is pretty good, I noticed it and so too other people. But I do not claim that I have a photographic memory. However, I do not want to rely on memory alone, I still try to understand every concepts and facts. Once I understood it, I find that I do not have to memorize it anymore. It just stuck there and easily retrieved once the keywords are punched. May be it is because of my ability to understand better which enables me to memorize better. I believe so!
Let me give you an example. What is the formula for velocity (V)? When I was first introduced to this formula in Form One or Two, I tried hard to memorize it. Velocity is equal to Distance (D) divided by Time (T) or V= D/T. In fact, I even created a triangle to simplify the formula in my personal notes. It looks like this;
1. Take personal notes.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
3. Finishing your assignments early.
4. Love your exams.
5. Manage your time.
6. Keep a Healthy Body.
2. The superiority of understanding over memorizing.
Do not merely memorize facts, try to understand it. If you just memorize it, there is no guarantee that you will understand it. However, if you understand it, there is a good chance that you can retain it in your memory. Of course understanding and memorizing at the same time will be even greater. However, if you have to choose one, understand first, and the memorizing part will come easy. That is what I meant by the superiority of understanding over memorizing.
Unfortunately for many students, they spend most of their times in memorizing facts and numbers. Sometimes this is done with elaborate methods and complex associations. I sometime wonder, if they can apply such complex ways of memorizing, why don’t they just apply the principles in understanding the facts instead. My memory is pretty good, I noticed it and so too other people. But I do not claim that I have a photographic memory. However, I do not want to rely on memory alone, I still try to understand every concepts and facts. Once I understood it, I find that I do not have to memorize it anymore. It just stuck there and easily retrieved once the keywords are punched. May be it is because of my ability to understand better which enables me to memorize better. I believe so!
Let me give you an example. What is the formula for velocity (V)? When I was first introduced to this formula in Form One or Two, I tried hard to memorize it. Velocity is equal to Distance (D) divided by Time (T) or V= D/T. In fact, I even created a triangle to simplify the formula in my personal notes. It looks like this;
With that pictogram, I thought it would help me to easily remember all the relevant formulas for velocity, time and distance. Unfortunately, sometimes when I redrew the diagram in an effort to retrieve the memory, I got confuse as to where are the D, T and V supposed to be. As you can see, if I misplace the D at the bottom instead of at the top, I will get a wrong formula. Soon it became apparent that memorizing the pictogram was very tedious. Not to mention, there are many more pictograms like this I have invented to simplify my methods of memorizing. I could easily confused one pictogram over the other.
Then I put a bit of effort in asking question like, why does Velocity (V) equal to Distance (D) divided by Time (T). Then I started to imagine a car racing from Apin-Apin to Keningau (60 km), and I can imagine the car will arrive in 10 minutes (1/6 hours), while bicycle takes 2 hours to get there. Knowing that the car is speedier (high velocity) than a bicycle, I tried to make sense the reason behind it. Suddenly it hit me like a revelation that a speed (velocity) is just a measure of how far (distance) you have covered in certain period (time). Eureka! That sentence summed up the whole thing. That understanding makes the pictogram above absolutely redundant. Needless to mention, I did not need to memorize the pictogram anymore. (You may need to read the above paragraph more than once to grasp what I meant).
Of course some facts need to be remembered or memorized with no understanding necessary. But these are exception, and very few of them. Examples are some names, places and dates. Formula is definitely not to be memorized, they are not only can be understood, they also can be derived if you know (not memorize) the principles behind them. For these facts that need to be memorized, I usually developed a simple way of association. There are various ways of strengthening our memory with association, and many books are written about it. I shall not divulge it further here, except to say that try to understand as much as you can. If it is an absolute fact and there is nothing there you need to understand then go ahead memorize it.
3. Finishing your assigments early (to be continued ... )
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