I’ll show you how to use AI to memorize a ton of text in one day. Let’s say it is one day to exams. For some reason, you have not studied. Let’s save the semester with the following tips.
Read also: How to Use ChatGPT to Help You Study
Understand: There are two things that you must do when learning a material.
The first is understanding.
a). How to Understand Anything
When you read a material for the first time, you may not understand it, especially if the subject is complicated. To understand, you must be intentional in your reading. That is, you should not just read through the material. You should be actively trying to decode the essence or rationale of the text.
Take the following text for instance:
“An object will remain at rest or in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force.” (This is Newton’s first law of motion).
To understand this material, look for patterns. These patterns will be necessary to make the information in the text understandable to you.
The pattern in Newton’s first law of motion is as follows: a) objects at rest tend to stay at rest unless something external forces them to move. Consider visualizing an example to gain a better understanding. You can use the example of a ball at rest until a player boots it. b) Objects that are moving tend to continue moving in a straight line until something external stops them or changes their course. A ball could move until it is saved by the goalkeeper or deflected by a defender.
In a nutshell, understanding involves identifying patterns in the text and working to get the information they convey.
5 Tips for Understanding
1. Activate Prior Knowledge: Before digging into a text, draw on your existing knowledge. There’s a good possibility you already know something about the topic you’re about to learn. Regardless of how little you already know, attempt to remember it. You can talk with yourself by saying, “Here’s what I know…blah blah.” What you already know is key to learning new things.
2. Define Key Terms: Each subject has its own language. It is extremely important to understand the vocabulary used in the topic you are studying. What academic jargons is used regularly throughout the text? Pay attention to important vocabulary. If you see unfamiliar terms, look them up to better understand the context.
3. Reread sections: in every topic you study, there are areas that are easier to grasp. Maybe because you have an existing knowledge in them or maybe there are just easier. But there are also areas that are simply too stubborn to understand. Go over these difficult areas multiple times. Sometimes, revisiting specific sections helps clarify complex ideas or details. Don’t hesitate to go back and read again.
4. Analyze and Connect Ideas: Consider how different sections of the text relate to one another. Look for patterns, cause-and-effect relationships, and thematic connections. Patterns are more easily detected when you actively read through the content. Read the text and attempt to understand as much as possible. Then go over it again, trying to find connections and patterns. This will offer you a better understanding of the overall picture of the topic, making it much easier to remember the information.
5. Paraphrase or summarize: after you ascertained that you have understood much of what you have read, try to express it in your own words. Create a summary of the concepts with in the topic and paraphrase them in your own way. If you find yourself struggling to paraphrase a section of the topic, it is a sign that you don’t understand it. Go over it again and try to understand it. Then put it in your own words.
b) How to Memorize Anything
Simply understanding the text is not enough. You must have it in your memory. This is particularly important for people who are preparing for exams. Even if you grasp the knowledge, you can still forget it.
To memorize, you must employ a number of techniques, which vary depending on the type of material being memorized.
8 Tips for Memorizing
1. Connect Emotionally: When you associate emotions with the information you want to remember, it becomes more memorable. For example, if you associate a sense of accomplishment with learning a concept, your brain is more likely to remember that information due to the stronger emotional link.
2. Use the Rule of Three: Our brains remember information better in groups of three than in larger pieces. Breaking down difficult information into smaller, more digestible portions allows your brain to process and retain it more effectively. This could imply mean grouping things into threes or presenting information in sets of three key topics.
3. Write It Down: Writing down what you’re trying to memorize engages your brain in a different way than simply reading or listening. The physical act of writing reinforces memory because it involves motor skills and visual recognition. Plus, you create a tangible record that you can review later, further reinforcing the information.
4. Determine Your Learning Style: People have different preferred ways of learning—visual, auditory, or kinesthetic. Understanding your learning style allows you to tailor your memorization techniques to what works best for you. For example, if you’re a visual learner, you might use diagrams or color-coded notes to help you remember information.
5. Prioritize Sleep: Sleep plays a crucial role in memory consolidation. During sleep, your brain processes and stores information you’ve learned throughout the day. Lack of sleep can impair this process and make it harder for you to remember what you’ve studied. Aim for quality sleep to optimize your memory retention.
6. Move Your Body: Physical activity increases blood flow to the brain, which can enhance memory retention and cognitive function. Studying while moving, such as walking or doing light exercises, can help improve your ability to remember information. Even short breaks for physical activity during study sessions can be beneficial.
7. Visualize Scenarios: Creating mental images related to the material helps make abstract concepts more concrete and memorable. Visualizing scenarios or examples can make it easier to understand and remember complex information. This technique engages your imagination and helps you create vivid mental representations of the material.
8. Associate Information: Making connections between new information and existing knowledge helps anchor memories in your mind. By associating new concepts with things you already know, you create a network of interconnected ideas that make it easier to recall information when needed. This technique helps reinforce learning and facilitates memory retrieval.
Understand that memorizing material is not a sustainable way of learning. To improve your memory, you must first understand something before memorizing it. If you miss the understanding phase, you will not have any knowledge that is applicable in the real world.
Read also: 9 AI Chatbots for Students
How to Use AI to Memorize
1. Create Questions and Answers
The best way to memorize is to simulate what exams would be like by creating questions and answers. This is not only important in simulating the exams, it makes the material stick with you as you would be answer questions instead of just memorizing.
How Do You Use AI for this?
To create questions, we will use ChatGPT. Go to OpenAI.com and sign up for free. Luckily, ChatGPT is free. After signing up, you can then write a prompt to ask ChatGPT to do a specific task.
Let’s demonstrate this using an example from the following text:
Write a prompt that looks something like this:
“I’m preparing for exams. Create all possible examinable questions from this text. Make sure you set them as if it were in a typical examination.”
ChatGPT will generate questions that look like the following:
This is actually pretty good.
If you think ChatGPT has not covered everything in the questions, especially when it is a large text, ask it for more questions.
Write a prompt that looks like this:
“Create more questions (make some multiple choices and others true or false).”
You can play around with it. Ask any type of question that could be asked in a test or an exam. You can go a step further and use a past paper as a model and ask ChatGPT to do the exact same thing as in the past paper.
2. Create a Table of Questions and Answers
After asking ChatGPT to create questions and answers, copy them to your laptop or phone and create a table of questions and answers. You can use both Word and Google Docs for this.
Put questions on the left side of the table and their respective answers on the right side, as shown:
After creating questions and answers and putting them in the table, you are all set to start memorization.
First, read through all the questions. Not passively. Read them actively. If necessary do this step three times so that the material can really stick with you.
Now you can cover the right side, the side with the answers, and try to answer the questions from your head. Remember, the goal is to memorize because there is only one day till exams. This is only to save your grades. As I already said, it is not an effective method of learning. This type of learning causes you to forget everything in a matter of days. But it is important in an emergency like this.
3. Create Summary Pages
When the content you are memorizing is lengthy, say 100 to 400 pages, you are likely to forget numerous details even after reading it several times. But the content that you forget will not disappear totally. If you remind yourself of even a small bit of it, you are more likely to remember the entire thing.
That is the purpose of creating summary pages. Try to prepare a one-page summary for each lecture. You can continue to use AI for this.
Copy the lecture notes and ask ChatGPT to write a summary of them. You can specify that the ChatGPT includes key points in each subtopic of the presentation.
In the morning of exams (obviously, you must get up early), go over the summary and try to recall everything you may have forgotten. If the summary is insufficient, you might refer to the question and answer table you created earlier.
4. Study the Material Multiple Times
I know you just have one day to memorize the entire notes. Even in that one day, you’ll need to read the content several times. This activates your brain in a process known as active recall. That is, you are retrieving knowledge from your brain, which strengthens the pathways for the information you are memorizing.
Depending on your learning ability, you can read the same content twice or three times in that day to ensure that it is truly retained.
Identify spots where you don’t appear to grasp the subject and read them repeatedly until your memory of the notes is evenly spread.
We are sometimes lured to read things that are simple for us to remember. You must avoid this. Don’t read the information that you already remember, especially if you’re trying to save the semester. Focus on the areas that you struggle to memorize.
5. Mind map
What is a mind map?
A mind map is a visual diagram that represents ideas linked to and arranged around a central concept using a non-linear graphical layout. When doing mind mapping, write the central idea at the centre of the paper and write every concept connected to it around the idea.
a. Visual Representation: Mind maps provide a bird’s-eye view of your thoughts by visually connecting related concepts, making it easier to understand complex relationships and identify underlying themes. Essentially, they function as a visual brainstorming tool, guiding you through the maze of your thoughts.
b. Central Concept: Picture the central concept as the nucleus of your mind map, radiating outwards like the sun’s rays. It’s the focal point around which all other ideas orbit. This main topic serves as the anchor for your exploration, with branches extending from it to represent different facets, details, or related thoughts. It’s like building a tree with the central concept as the trunk and branches as the various branches of your thoughts.
c. Non-Linear Structure: Traditional note-taking often follows a linear path, moving from point A to point B in a structured manner. Mind maps, on the other hand, break free from this linear confinement. They allow you to embrace the freedom of thought by accommodating a non-linear structure. You can branch out in any direction, add new branches or sub-branches spontaneously, and make connections wherever your mind takes you. It’s akin to exploring a vast landscape where you can wander off the beaten path and discover new territories at every turn.
d. Benefits of Mind Mapping for Studying: Let’s delve into the perks of using mind maps for studying:
- Memory Enhancement: Mind maps act as memory boosters, helping you retain information more effectively. By organizing information visually and creating strong associations between concepts, they enhance memory recall and make it easier to retrieve information when needed.
- Creative Thinking: Mind maps stimulate creative thinking by tapping into the brain’s preference for spatial representation. By presenting information in a visually engaging format, they ignite the imagination and facilitate the generation of new ideas.
- Organization: When faced with a complex assignment or project, creating a mind map can be a lifesaver. It serves as a roadmap for organizing your thoughts, enhancing coherence, and ensuring that your work flows logically from one point to the next.
- Essay Structure: For students struggling with essay writing, mind maps offer a valuable tool for structuring their thoughts. By associating keywords, phrases, and images in a visual format, they provide a clear framework for organizing content and ensuring that each idea is presented in a cohesive manner.
6. The Scribble Method
The scribble method is one of those simple strategies that can make a big difference in how well you remember things.
Here’s how you do it:
1. Take your paper and pen, and place the paper in front of your dominant hand.
2. Then, as you read through your study material, start scribbling on the paper. There’s no need to worry about making any kind of sense or forming coherent shapes—just scribble away in random directions.
3. Keep repeating this scribbling action as you go over all your study material.
Scribbling triggers something in your brain that makes it pay more attention to the notes you’re taking, which in turn helps you remember the information better. It tricks your brain into thinking that you are writing something down, and as said earlier, writing notes by hand while reading helps in retaining information.
7. Retrieval Practice
Instead of just passively reading and re-reading your notes, retrieval practice involves actively testing yourself on what you know.
Here’s why it’s so effective:
1. When you challenge yourself to recall information from memory, you’re not just checking to see if you remember it—you’re actually strengthening those memory pathways in your brain.
2. Studies have shown time and time again that retrieval practice can significantly boost your retention and understanding of the material.
So, how do you put retrieval practice into action?
It’s simple:
- Take a blank sheet of paper and write down everything you can remember about a particular topic or concept. Put your books and notes away—this is your chance to see what you really know.
- By forcing yourself to recall information without any prompts, you’re essentially training your brain to retrieve that information more efficiently. And the more you practice retrieval, the stronger those memory connections become.
Read also: How to Use AI to Optimize Your Learning
Summary
In your daily studies, you need to put understanding first. Cramming or memorizing is not recommended. You should only do it when you absolutely have to. When memorizing, use AI to create questions and answers based on the material you will provide it with. Tabulate these questions and answers and read them over and over again. If you follow this strictly, you will pass your exams with good grades and save the semester.
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