What is the best way to retain information?

You might consider using mnemonic devices like rhyming (which @NewZen suggested to me in another question) or associating certain images, e.g., with the material you want to memorize.

Or, more simply: flash cards. They’ve never failed me.

Put it in a song! The wonders of music helped me memorize 200 digits of pi.

note cards?

Flash cards can help.

In terms of concepts? I’d say study with a buddy and explain the information to each other or “teach” someone else. Teaching someone else the info (even if they already know it) is a wonderful way to learn it and solidify it in your mind.

What has helped me this year is to read ALL the assigned readings in the textbook and take detailed notes on ALL of them. Never failed me.

Spaced repetition. If you re-learn a piece of information right before your brain is about to forget it, you retain it longer. Apparently, we hold onto most newly learned information for around 2 weeks, so if you relearn it on day 13, you’re more likely to remember it longer. The next “forgetfulness” point is around the 4 week mark, so you need to relearn that same information on day 29. After that, I believe it’s around 10–12 weeks, and so on, and so forth.

Anki is a wonderful flashcard program that will do all the scheduling for you. All you have to do is create the flashcards and it will show you the appropriate cards at the appropriate time.

It depends on what your trying to study and memorize. For things like anatomy I learn the structures by putting them in a certain sequence. For example memorizing the heart arteries come before veins so I would look at it like A (arteries) comes before V (veins) or another one the atrium was above the ventricle so A (atrium) comes before V (ventricle) on second thought this probably doesn’t help anyone besides me sorry!

I have a photographic memory so pictures or just reading the information helps me and also flashcards as others have said.

this is an awesome question. Another suggestion I would have is one my mo gave me: if you do flashcards, go over them right before bed and think of them until you go to sleep. She is going for a teaching degree at Whitworth and it helps her. She even says she dreams about them, heh.

Welcome to Fluther, lurve.

@absalom and @sliceswiththings Songs – of course it’s a great way! I mentioned the rhyme technique because I personally am not only almost as blind as a bat, but I’m very colour-blind, too.

Most people associate things with a visual – and this seems to be the best way. I don’t have that luxury. But music – that’s a great way. Shakira says she learnt her English by listening to Dylan and Cohen, btw.

Beatles and Simon and garfunkel are the best, imho.

:-)

@NewZen

Ah, that’s true. One of my most brilliant professors (polylingual) learned English and was motivated to pursue the language by listening to the Beatles.

the power of association is incredible.

I tend to prefer trying to fully understand something rather than trying to memorize it. Memorization only lasts so long; if you only try memorizing words or numbers without any deeper understanding of their meaning, it will be harder to retain. My last precalculus teacher was a big believer in this method and was fantastic because of it. Instead of making us remember formulas, she would make sure we would understand and be able to explain certain mathematical functions in words. Logarithms used to be my enemy, but now they’re super easy for me and that is the reason.

But in cases when you have to memorize something (like digits of pi, random technological terms, etc) song or rhythm is definitely the way to go. I can still remember all the countries of Central and South America (and their capital cities) because of a song I learned almost a decade ago.

The power of association, as @NaturalMineralWater said, is also incredible. I’m currently studying Chinese characters, and I bought a book that explains the pictorial origins of each one (for example, the character for “big” was originally a person standing with their arms and legs outstretched). That is much easier than trying to remember them via memorization alone.

Good luck with your learning, and welcome to Fluther!

@ParaParaYukiko What’s the song?

I don’t know its official title, but you can find it here.

It’s so repetitive, it’s almost hypnotic…

Thanks!

Thanks for all the responses.

Invent mnemonic hooks using graphic images in a funny short story. Suppose you meet someone named Rodan Zappa. Picture him as someone sitting on a couch with a remote control in his hand. He’s channel zapping until he stops, eyes wide open. There’s a rodent on television gnawing at something that looks like a remote control.

I’m not kidding. Crazy little stories like this will give your brain and its associative cortex no choice but to remember it. All you need is a short moment of focus. Pay attention to your own little story. You won’t ever forget it.

—Can I remember Rodan Zappa as rodent frank zappa @mattbrowne? I always use rhymes or word games or anagrams – because my eyes play tricks on me.

Works too ;-)

All depends on the type of person and how innet they are with their ability of memorization.So personally I memorize things rather fast and what gave me my memory abilities was someone to compete with. Every since I was little nothing really motivated me until my family started saying why don’t you get as good grades as your brother.
So since then I’ve been trying to get better grades and I’ve got amazing memory.
Show something to me once for 5 minutes and I can remember it for up to 3 weeks. (Same goes for listening).