Tips to Remember Better

1. Think about what you are trying to learn. Find an interest in the material if you wish to memorize it with ease.
2. Understand thoroughly what is to be remembered and/or memorized
3. Study first the items that you want to remember longest.
4. Spot what is to be memorized verbatim. It is a good plan to use a special marking symbol in text and notebook to indicate parts and passages, rules, data, and all other information that is to be memorized instead of just understood and remembered
5. If verbatim memory is required, go over the material or try to repeat at odd times.
6. Learn complete units at one time, as that is the way it will have to be recalled.
7. Analyze material and strive to intensify the impressions the material makes.
8. Use concrete imagery whenever possible. Close your eyes and get a picture of the explanation and summary answer. Try to see it on the page. See the key words underlined.
9. Make your own applications, examples, and illustrations.
10. Reduce the material to be remembered to your own self-made system or series of numbered steps.
11. Represent the idea graphically by use of pictorial or diagrammatic forms.
12. Make a list of key words most useful in explaining the idea or content of the lesson.
13. Form a variety of associations among the points you wish to remember. The richer the associations, the better the memory.
14. Actually write out examination questions on the material you think you might get at the end of the term. Then write the answers to your own questions. Since you now have the chance, consult the text or your notes to improve your answers.
15. Overlearn to make certain.
16. Follow suggestions for reviewing. This is an important part of remembering.

—Courtesy of Virginia Tech