Tips on Memorising Facts

Hi there, hope everyone is doing great! I just came back from an amazing trip and will be blogging about my holidays soon. Since I realised that there are 2 similar post requests on memorising tips, I thought I'd begin blogging on this topic first.

For many of you (including myself) I know that exams, trials are coming up and there can be so so many things to memorise. Well, here are a few tips that you can do whether you are trying to memorise historical facts, scientific information, a sequence of a particular event or even names of people/ processes.

• Make your own notes. It can be really helpful to read your own handwriting as you are very familiar with it. For SPM history, I actually wrote out notes for every single page in the Form 4 and 5 textbook which took me months... If I had it now I would snap a photo and show it to you. I didn't like to read the textbook because it was too wordy and had big chunks of words. So I told myself I'll be reading it for the first and last time while writing my notes. Thus, I made sure that I had every single important info excluding diagrams/ pictures of people. I would refer to my textbook for those purposes. Please be aware that this is not always necessary and would not be helpful if you have limited time for exam. I started early like months before my exam and did it bit by bit so that was fine. So choose your methods wisely :)
• Decorate your notes and use colours pens or highlighters when studying. To me it makes learning less boring and more interactive. Something funny is that when I study I must hold on to something (a pen/ a pointer) and write or highlight. If not I'd drift off or my mind would tend to wander away. 
• Use acronyms. For example, the phases in mitosis (biology) P M A T. PM Already Tukar representing Prophase, Metaphase, Anaphase, Telophase. That time when I was learning the topic I got news about the new Prime Minister in our country. Another one would be the Scientific Classification: 'Ketua Pengawas Can Organise Funny Gay Songs' is for Kingdom Phylum Class Order Family Genus Species. And there are so many more, I use it all the time and create my own as well. Sometimes if there are a list of names, try grouping those that start with the same letter and memorise them accordingly. 
• Avoid eating fast food, maggi ( thanks Priya for reminding me today) and junk food which are not good for the brain especially when exam draws near. Eat more raisins, fruits, veggie and carbohydrate.
• Don't cram too much at one time. Relax while you are reading it and when you don't put too much stress on the brain, it will remember facts naturally when you repeatedly read something. Try to understand what you read instead of reading blindly.
• Drink a lot of water. It important to ensure your body is always hydrated and the brain functions better.
• Try a change in environment sometimes. It can be really dull and boring to be at the same place same time doing the same thing. A change in study style may help the mind to be more alert.
• Silent areas are helpful when you need the mind to focus on something. Turn your phone on silent of possible and avoid any possible distraction. Not for too long of course. Once the mind is tired it will lose focus so take some snack or exercise breaks.
• Read it out loud. It always helpful to hear yourself reading it. You can even record yourself reading out the facts that you need to memorise and when you are tired of reading, just replay it again and again and try to get familiarised with it.
• Try asking somebody to test or question you on that particular topic.
• Close the book and try to repeat what you are trying to memorise,
• Search online if there are any acronyms that people shared.
• I know this is not easy but try to not think of too many things. If there's something bothering you or there is something on your mind, just say to yourself, I'll be right back as soon as I'm done reading this ^^
• Continuously read it and go to the next chapter even if you're not sure if you have memorised all from the earlier ones. Just proceed because repeating the same thing too long will make your mind lose focus and you tend to look at the words blindly.
• Finally pray and remember to read the doa mula belajar everytime you start studying. Seek guidance from God to make it easier for you.

I wish all of you the very best and hopefully this post will help you :D