Memorizing Complex Facts

'Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer' — Charles Caleb Colton

Dr. Dev (Fictional Name) recalled that in the first internal exam in AIIMS, New Delhi, more than half of the MBBS class had failed in Biochemistry subject. 

Biochemistry is the subject dealing with the chemical reactions and process in human beings and living organism.

This was far more worse than the failure rate in the other two subjects, i.e. Anatomy (the study of structure/formation of human body) and Physiology (the study of working/mechanics of human body)

This result is more shocking when you consider that the AIIMS, New Delhi, batch was composed of many schools, district, and state toppers. 

The problem with biochemistry was there were lots of facts, tables, chemical reactions, biochemical pathways, and biochemical cycles to remember. Much of the facts were abstract concept making it difficult to remember and write in the exam. In contrast, in anatomy, you can actually see the structure of the human body and get a visual understanding making it easy to remember.

    A similar problem may arise in memorizing mathematical and physics formulae, dates in history, rules and regulations in law and finance, etc.

Although there are no absolute shortcuts, yet some strategies might be useful to remember such facts.

One strategy is to make large charts, poster, tables, printouts and stick them on the walls of your room so that you are literary surrounded by the facts. Just glancing around your room will serve to revise the facts. Make it a habit to quickly read/check the posters, charts, etc. every time you go out and enter your room.

Another strategy based on the subconscious mind theory is to read the facts, reactions, tables, and cycles, just before going to bed and first thing in the morning on getting up. You can do this in your bed if necessary. The poster on your wall can also be a source of such revision. This is supposed to take help of subconscious mind while you are sleeping in remembering the facts. 

Another strategy is repeated spaced revisions. For example, instead of reading the facts 10 – 15 times in a single day, if you have sufficient time before your exam, then read the facts 3 times daily for the next 5-7 days. This is based on the fact that we forget 70 – 80% of whatever we read in the first 24 hours itself. By daily revising the facts this gets reversed and what we have read gets converted into long term memory. Even after a week keep on doing periodic spaced revisions to keep facts in your long term memory.

Another method is not just read the facts, reactions, pathways, etc, but to write them down. Initially, you can copy them from your textbooks for 2-3 times. Then close the book and try to write them down from memory. As expected you will make mistakes, check the mistakes, read it and again close the book and write it down. This can be repeated until you get it right. Combine this with the above-mentioned strategy of repeated revision by writing to get better results.

So friends hope that some of these methods will be useful to you and you will remember me when you get your gold medal in biochemistry or other subjects.

(Based on allegedly true incident)

— ND

© Author. All rights reserved. 

Please share this post on WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.

If viewing from Mobile, switch to Webpage view to see a list of popular posts and index of topics of previous posts.

Please give your valuable feedback via comments below. Please note that comments will appear later only after moderation. Please Log in with Google Id before writing comments.

You can receive a notification on latest post by subscribing via clicking on the bottom of the page on the Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Practice should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost. 

DISCLAIMER: This article is intended only for fun purpose. The author does not promote or recommend any behavior illustrated here or claim it to be useful. Use of the information herein is at you one's own risk. Before trying to emulate or follow anything the reader is well advised to take into account ethical, moral, legal and other considerations. The author recommends that Medical Education should be of the highest ethical and moral level keeping in mind the interest of the patient as foremost and according to MCI and other Board’s norm.