I consider myself a person with above average intelligence, that is, I am able to understand complex systems with relative ease. My weak point however is that I've always struggled with memorizing. Back in school I excelled in math and physics, but struggled with e.g. history, not because I wasn't interested in it, but simply because I had a hard time memorizing what was necessary.Is there a good method for memorizing? Context: I am planning to go back to university this fall. I am learning now for the entrance exam. That is something I will manage, but I anticipate university exams themselves being harder than that, and I will attend to uni while still having a day job. That is, I have no time to waste on improper/suboptimal learning methods. I aim for BA first, then MA. I am 31 years old now.
What is the easiest way to memorize big amounts of information (a.k.a. learning for exams)?
learning
Thanks for everyone for your answers.I've found this book and it seems to be what I was looking for: Make It Stick - The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown et al. The basic premise is that retrieving things from memory makes them actually stick. The more effort to retrieve it the better. Therefore you shouldn't mass learn because it's more or less a waste of time, rather embed waits and do something else, interleave subjects, and most importantly test yourself by retrieving from memory instead of rereading, and so on.Also, there is an other book that looks great, with a seemingly great deal of overlap with the former: How We Learn by Benedict Carey.I am also mentioning that I've stumbled upon a book asserting that everyone has to find about what their learning style is, like visual/auditory/etc... and left vs right hemisphere, but concluded that it is unfounded at best (the word pseudoscience comes to my mind), so I returned it. See Criticism at Wikipedia.