Studying Techniques

Less is more when it comes to making study notes

When it comes to making study notes, less is more. Ever noticed how hard it is to retain information if it’s coming at you too fast to absorb it? It’s as if it’s ‘not going in’ your brain to start with, and if it ain’t in there, you’re hardly going [...]

Memory

Why you should ditch the computer and make study notes by hand

Especially these days, when we are so dependent on our trusty computers both for finding information and also for filing it, it’s tempting to make our study notes on them too. But there’s a problem with this. Well, only a problem if your reason for making the study notes is [...]

Memory

How do you measure up?

How can you tell if you really know your stuff for the exam? Well, you’ve got to test yourself, obviously. But how many of us do that on limited time we have, when we’d rather spend it actually getting the material into our heads in the first place? On the [...]

Studying Techniques

Testing, testing

When you’ve sweated buckets of effort on absorbing information, you need to make sure all that hard work is worthwhile. You need a way to keep that information in your head. So when you’ve created your revision notes on one side of the paper you’re writing on, turn it over. [...]

Brain, Memory

Mental Note…

You’ve heard me say a number of times, it’s no good expecting the material you need to learn to enter your head of its own accord, settle down into your memory banks and await your recall. You’ve got to actively manipulate the information in whatever way is appropriate for you, [...]

Learning

Lined paper or plain for visual advantage?

Why would I suggest you use plain paper instead of lined to write your revision notes? The problem with lined paper is that it encourages you to write in a linear fashion from left to right, starting at the beginning of the line and not moving onto the next until [...]

Emotional intelligence, General, Learning

How would you have fared in Bruce Forsyth’s Generation Game?

You do remember the Generation Game, don’t you? Started in the early ‘70s… and as kids we loved it, especially the last game where the two families tried to copy an expert in a skill needing the ability to pay close attention and copy accurately. One week there’d be an [...]

Learning

What sort of revision notes should you make?

We all process, store and retrieve information differently. And we all need to find the best way to revise for our own brain and learning preferences. As you develop your own way of doing things, you might find some of the following ideas useful. Ideas for highly visual learners Use [...]

Studying Techniques

Improve your study skills with mnemonics for financial planning exams

How do world memory champions remember the names of 600 people filing past them, or the order of cards in four packs of playing cards? And if you could use some of them, would you find your financial planning exams easy to pass? Well, it turns out that they’re not [...]

Brain

Do you send your brain to sleep?

Did you know, most people when they revise, make one of two mistakes. Either they do what I used to do when I was at school, and begin well – making revision notes – but very quickly default to writing out word for word everything in the textbook in case [...]