Speaker 1: So, you're forgetful, as in, you constantly misplace your phone or glasses and find them in the weirdest places, you regularly forget about deadlines or appointments, and you study for hours and hours trying to memorize your class material, only to show up to the test and realize that your mind is completely blank and you remember absolutely nothing. Well, you've come to the right place since this has been the story of my life. And trust me, you are not broken, there is nothing wrong with you, and there are simple solutions to improve your memory and your life. 1. Get eye surgery to fix your vision and just throw away your glasses and phone. Who needs them anyway? 2. Hire a personal butler or secretary to control your entire life and schedule. 3. Just drop out of school. If you don't have any tests, you can't fail them, right? And that's the end of my TED Talk. I'm so happy that I could transform your life today. Well, in all seriousness though, after watching this video, which I will try my best to make unforgettable, you'll be armed with the best science and cognitive psychology-based memorization techniques that you can use to prepare for and ace any exam and that you can apply to basically anything that you want to learn or self-study and you want to remember. Alright, so before we jump into all the memorization tips and hacks, you need to understand one basic principle. Levels of processing. Basically, the deeper and more meaningful your brain's processing of a piece of information is, the more accurately and easily you will recall that information. So, as an example of this, let's take the word onomatopoeia. If I just show you this word right now and ask you to memorize it based on how it looks or how it sounds, you'll probably forget it by tomorrow. However, if I give you the meaning of the word and examples of it, you're much more likely to remember it tomorrow. And now, if I tell you the way I memorized the definition of onomatopoeia for English class was by imagining myself walking into a guy named Matto peeing in a bathroom stall and screaming out loud, you're probably even more likely to remember this word and its meaning now, since you most likely weren't expecting such a random and crude example and were surprised. Speaking of surprises, there are two ways to deepen our levels of processing of information that we want to remember. Distinctiveness and elaboration. Distinctiveness just means something that you're memorizing or learning about really stands out or is different from other memories. For instance, you're probably unlikely to forget that Kylie Jenner and Timothee Chalamet are dating right now, since it seems like a relatively bizarre and surprising pairing, but you'll probably forget the vast majority of your professor's lecture yesterday since you found the information boring and it all just blurred together. So, our level of curiosity in something, as well as how surprising or bizarre it is and how relevant or interesting it is to us, all play a factor in something's distinctiveness in our minds, making it easier to remember that information. The other aspect of processing, elaboration, simply means that when we emphasize the meaning of a concept and relate it to other things we previously knew or other concepts we've already mastered, we're much more likely to remember it. For this example, let's take somnambulism or sleepwalking, which seems very straightforward to memorize. However, if you're purely just trying to cram for your neuroscience class like I was, you might accidentally mix it with sleep paralysis or cataplexy or narcolepsy or hypnagogic hallucinations. That is, unless, like me, you watched the episode of Apothecary Diaries where Mao Mao specifically talks about somnambulism. Since throughout the episode, I was trying to solve the mystery of the dancing woman on the roof and deeply thinking about what I already knew about somnambulism, how it tied into the case and how Mao Mao would solve it, the term somnambulism stuck in my head because I understood and thought about its deeper meaning and when it showed up on my neuroscience exam, I didn't mix it with any of the other sleep disorders. So, now that we've covered the key aspects of memory and processing, let's dive into actual practical tips for deepening our processing and improving memorization and recall. First off, before we go about memorizing stuff, we need to know what exactly we're memorizing. For instance, you probably don't need to memorize every word in the Campbell Biology textbook in order to get an A in AP Biology since that would drive you insane, overload your brain, and waste your time since not all of the information in there is going to be on your exams. So, summary outlines, key term lists, questions at the end of chapters, study guides, practice tests, and quizzes in your classes can be super helpful for understanding what is going to be tested and also what you need to actually focus on memorizing. Alright, so first up, let's discuss practical tips for improving the distinctiveness of certain information in our brain. Now, to make information more distinct or stand out, the self-referenced effect can be super helpful since it basically refers to the phenomenon where we remember information more if we relate it to ourselves. That's why it's so much easier for us to remember information about our star signs or personalities since it relates to us and helps us out and our brain likes to remember things that are useful or relevant to our lives. So, when I'm learning about something or trying to remember concepts for an exam, I try to relate as much of the information as I can to my body, my life. Also, by doing this, it helps increase our curiosity in a subject and piques our interest since we tend to be more interested in things that can actually be applicable to our lives or relate to us. Next up, we can also use the encoding specificity principle which basically says that we will recall things better if our environment or context when trying to remember the information is similar to the environment in which we memorized it. That's why when I'm revising and reviewing for exams, I try to study in a quiet room similar to the test environment so that I can really focus on the material in front of me but also replicate the testing environment as much as possible. Other ways to do this would be to use the same pencil or pen that you'll be using during the exam, doing practice questions or tests in a similar format, again trying to keep the noise down around you when studying so that it's similar to a classroom. But sometimes it's just impossible to fully control how noisy your surroundings are, especially if you live with a very loud family or pet or tend to study in public places. In that case, I highly recommend using Loop earplugs, today's sponsor, since they feature a unique acoustic filter that helps you focus and take the edge off all the noise around you while you're studying. Loops are the perfect blend of quality, fashion, and comfort, are reusable and washable, and help reduce the noise around you through passive hearing protection while still allowing you to hear conversations. I personally use them for a lot of my study sessions, especially when I need to memorize a lot of information and especially need to concentrate since my home environment is never fully quiet. Overall, Loops come with numerous tip sizes so you can find the perfect fit for your ears, and there's a bunch of colors and options to choose from depending on your preferences and needs. So if you need help concentrating during your study sessions or are just overall highly sensitive to noise and need help falling asleep or handling loud crowded areas like concerts or parties, then be sure to check out Loop earplugs by clicking the link in the description box and using my code. Another way to make information stand out in your memory is by purposefully making it funny or cringey or just very bizarre, like the onomatopoeia example. This can be done through mnemonics, which are mental strategies designed to improve memory. There are two main categories of mnemonics, imagery and organization. With imagery, you would imagine a picture or scenario for the word and its definition. So, for instance, I associated somnambulism with the dancing ghost woman, and I still remember the term pork barrel spending from AP US government years ago because I envisioned a pig rolling barrels full of money to different projects within a state or district. And for language learning, a great hack is the keyword method where you would link a word in your native language to the new vocabulary word that you want to learn in the new language. For mnemonics involving organization, mind mapping, hierarchies, and the first letter technique can be super helpful. Basically, by making a visual linking system between concepts, it can be easier for you to memorize the relationships between those concepts. Also, the first letter technique, which is where you create a word or a sentence from the first letters of the words that you want to memorize in a specific order, can also be very useful. So, a common example is Roy G Biv for the colors of the rainbow, but I still remember from astronomy the order of stellar types by temperature because of the mnemonic, oh be a fine girl or guy, kiss me. We also tend to remember stories, especially interesting stories, which explains why we can recap the plots of the most recent books that we read or shows that we watched, but not chapter 10 of the textbook that we read just yesterday. So, you can use the narrative technique for certain vocab words or phrases and make a little story or sequence of events that links them together in your mind. Alright, so now for some tips on how to improve elaboration or deeply understanding complex topics and remembering them. So, one method is to try to read a passage, wait a few minutes, and then try to explain the passage to yourself without looking at the written passage. Basically, this is a form of active reading and you're also less likely to zone out and fail to notice that you are no longer paying attention to your reading and just rereading the same sentence over and over. This is also very similar to the Feynman technique, which is basically pretending to teach the concept or material to someone else in simpler terms. Another method to improve elaboration is to handwrite your notes from the textbook, since handwriting is linked to improving memory, while trying to write everything in your own words and also coming up with little diagrams or mnemonics that you write in the margins along the way. This will force you to deeply think about the material and engage with it and also try to understand the meanings and connections within it and not just superficially rewriting everything without actually absorbing or understanding anything. Another scientifically supported technique that helps with memorizing complex topics is asking and answering why questions about the material. I especially like to do this with questions that I missed on practice tests, quizzes, or past assignments and I ask myself, why was my answer not correct and why is the correct answer the right choice? I then search for the material to read about the information and explanation and it's much more likely to stick in my memory because I asked and answered why. And, of course, for especially difficult or complex material, YouTube videos or lectures can be very helpful at explaining things more simply and showing you engaging visuals that are much easier to remember than the very minuscule font of your very bland textbook. Alright, so now for some other hacks for improving memory that you can apply to your study sessions. First off, it turns out that being tested on material actually increases memory for the material. This is known as the testing effect, which is basically the observation that the act of taking a test is actually an excellent way to boost long-term recall for material. So, basically, practice tests are your best friend and it's actually great to do a pre-test before you actually start studying and cramming and reviewing and trying to memorize the material. Next up is active recall. Probably you've heard about it before, but it's basically the process of searching your brain to find an answer. It's proven to improve memory. So, basically, flashcards like Quizlet, practice tests again, and covering parts of your notes and trying to fill in the blanks on your own are all forms of active recall and will help improve your memory. Also, distributed practice, which is basically spacing out your study sessions, can also help push back the forgetting curve, which basically shows that learners usually forget an average of 90% of new information within the first seven days. So, even if they're 10 to 15 minute review sessions every couple of days, if you space them out, you'll move the forgetting curve and improve your retention of the material. Also, according to current research, a delay of at least one day between practice sessions is especially effective in boosting long-term retention. So, the next tip is to try to use the information in real life. This is kind of hard for the majority of material because, for instance, you might not be using ancient history in your regular life, but the rule is that we tend to remember things that we regularly use or need in our daily lives. For things like languages, the more that you practice the language and try to speak to people on a daily basis, the more you will retain the vocabulary that you learned. And last but not least, practice essays or, for oral exams, practice oral presentations can be super helpful for memorization since it prepares you for the format of the exam and also makes you think more deeply about the material, which, again, improves elaboration. I've had many classes where there would be an essay in the exam and we wouldn't know exactly what the prompt is beforehand, obviously, so I would either look at old prompts if it was like an AP class, I would look at old FRQs, or if I didn't have access to any old prompts, I would try to guess what my teacher would come up with and write one to five fake prompts for myself and then actually write the full essay in advance. And this would really help prepare me not only for the essays but also for the multiple choice parts since I would be much more likely to remember whatever I wrote about and really deeply thought about. And that's it. So, here's an overall memorization game plan integrating all the tips of the video, and these are just some sample ones. Obviously, of course, it depends on the class, it depends on you. If you really struggle with memorization, I would try different methods and just see which one works for you the most. And, uh, I forgot what else I was supposed to say. Anyways, bye guys.