Super top students: the most efficient learning method for top students

Chapter 25 The third step of efficient learning - Accurate memory (1)
Remembering is as regular as forgetting
Grasp the time law of memory

Memorizing is not a simple matter. It does not mean that you can do well if you work hard, so when we memorize, we must learn to master the rules, and the most obvious rule of memory is the controllability of time.

Generally speaking, if you read a book for 50 minutes, you should let yourself rest for 10 minutes. You can get up and do stretching exercises, walk around, drink some water, let yourself take a deep breath, or gently close your eyes and relax completely for 10 minutes.If you are very absorbed in memorizing at this time, you don't have to stick to the principle of "you must get up and rest now", because sometimes when you are interrupted during the very engaging stage, it is difficult to restore your attention and concentration to the original level, and you will rest as a result. On the contrary, your memory efficiency will be compromised.

The arrangement of memory time, sleep time, and leisure time should be flexible, and there is no need to be superstitious about a fixed biological clock.Some people will say: "The longer I go to night, the better my energy is, and the memory efficiency is better!" Some people don't take this situation seriously, thinking that staying up at night is harmful to health, and they should force themselves to adjust back to the "normal" biological clock , but forcing yourself to adjust may lead to more serious side effects-slack during the day, tossing and turning in bed early at night, resulting in lower sleep quality.In fact, the best memory time in a day varies from person to person. Generally speaking, there are mainly four types: lark type, owl type, this and that type and mixed type.

1. Lark type
Some people who are used to "working at sunrise and resting at sunset" feel that they are as cheerful as larks during the day-brain cells enter a state of high excitement, and memory efficiency is particularly high at a certain period of time.It is said that Ai Qing's best writing time is from 8 to 9 o'clock in the morning.Some people's best memory time is from 8 to 10 o'clock in the morning, and the memory efficiency is also very high at 2 to 3 o'clock after a nap.

2. Owl
Some people who are accustomed to night battles realize that they are as active as owls at night-brain cells enter a state of high excitement, and memory efficiency is particularly high during a certain period of time.Some celebrities in China feel at ease physically and mentally as soon as night falls, and develop the habit of writing at night, such as Lu Xun, Ba Jin, He Qifang and so on.The French writer Flaubert had the habit of writing with a lamp and staying up all night, so that the lights that were on all night became a beacon on the Seine River.

3. This and that

Some people feel that the period of memory after waking up or before going to bed is the most efficient and quickest in thinking.Yao Xueyin and Chen Jingrun in China are used to starting work at 3 o'clock in the morning.The American novelist Scott said that the half hour between waking up and getting up is the golden moment that is very helpful to him in any work of creativity.Da Vinci likes to lie on the bed alone in the dark before going to sleep or after waking up, and use his imagination to recall the outlines of the objects he has studied and other things he has understood after careful consideration to deepen his impression.

4. Hybrid

Some people have both a lark-type best memory time period and an owl-shaped best memory time period, that is, there are two best time periods in a day.Someone in the United States conducted memory function tests on 100 hospital nurses at different times of the day, and found that some people's best memory time is 8 to 10 o'clock in the morning and 8 to 10 o'clock in the evening.Their perception is that after a night of sleep, the tired cells of the brain are fully rested, the reaction and association to things are very quick, and the thinking ability is strengthened; the night is quiet, the attention is easy to concentrate, and the thinking is quick.

In short, according to your own physiological characteristics, find out the time that allows you to achieve the highest memory efficiency, so that memory can achieve the best effect.Here's a way to measure your optimal memory time:
Divide your study day into hourly time zones.Select four or five groups (20 in each group, syllable length and difficulty level) of foreign language words that have not been learned before, and recite them in the morning, morning, afternoon and evening respectively, and record the time or times of reciting. After 24 hours, review your memory scores in each time zone.During the re-examination, use the re-learning method to record the time or times used for re-learning; use the recall method to record the recalled results, and calculate the amount of recall (the percentage of the original memory).In this way, compare the time or times used in the previous time with the memory score of the next time, and the ratio of the two in each time zone is the best, that is your best memory time zone.

After you find your memory pattern, you can arrange your studies according to this pattern, and learn the subjects that need to be memorized most when your memory is strongest, while other time can be used for practice.This is more efficient than learning blindly.

Don't want to forget, just repeat the memory
Many middle school students will have such troubles. Foreign language words, Chinese texts, mathematics, physics and chemistry theorems, formulas, etc. that have been memorized will be forgotten after a period of time.How to do it?The main way to solve this problem is to review in time.Dietzgen, a German philosopher, said that repetition is the mother of learning.

Review refers to the mechanical reaction of the brain to enable people to recall content that they are not interested in at all and have no associations.Ebbinghaus's forgetting law curve tells us: when memorizing meaningless content, within the first 20 minutes, 42% is forgotten; after 1 hour, 56% is forgotten; after 9 hours, 64% is forgotten; after 1 day, 66% is forgotten %; after 2 days, 73% were forgotten; after 6 days, 75% were forgotten; after 31 days, 79% were forgotten.The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle once said: "Time is the main destroyer." Our memory gradually fades over time, and the easiest way to save it is to relearn, or repeat.At the age of 83, Mao Yisheng, a famous scientist in my country, could still memorize the exact value of 100 digits of pi after the decimal point. Someone asked him what is the secret of such a good memory. Mr. Mao only answered seven words "repeat, repeat Repeat."It can be seen that genius is not innate talent, just as Mencius said: "Everyone can be Yao and Shun." There is a saying in Buddhism: "One can become a Buddha by explaining it." As long as you study hard and practice hard, you can also become a great person.

Although repetition can effectively improve memory, it does not mean blind repetition, and repetition should also pay attention to methods.Pause after memorizing, then repeat a second time.Pause again before repeating the third time, this is because: everything that stays in the mind for more than 20 seconds can be transformed from instant memory to short-term memory, so as to be consolidated and maintained for a long time.Of course, the information at this point still needs to be reinforced through review.

So, how often is the most scientific to review each time?

Generally speaking, the interval should be as long as possible without causing the information to be forgotten.For example, the number of revisions in a week after you study a certain material should be 5 times.The 5 times don't evenly line up in 5 days.The time when the information forgetting rate is the highest is: the longer the early information is kept in memory, the less the risk of being forgotten, so the initial interval during review should be a little smaller, and then gradually extended.

We can compare the effect of set method and interval method memory.

If you want to remember the main points of an article, how should you remember it?

You can use the "collection method" first, that is, read it several times until you can recite it, and remember the time you spent.After completing memorization with the "set method", let's look at the situation with the "interval method".This time change to the main point of another paragraph: After reading it once, look away from the question for about 10 seconds, read it a second time, and try to recall it.If you can't recall it accurately, look away for a few more seconds and read it a third time.Continue in this way until you can recall the words without error, and then write the time taken.

Comparing the two memory methods, you will find that although the first memory method is faster than the second method, its memory effect may not be as good as the second method.Many experiments have also shown that interval memory has more advantages than collective memory.Psychologists have studied the speed of memorizing a text according to the number of readings: if you read a text 6 times in a row and read the text every 5 minutes, and read it 6 times in a row, compare the two, the latter will remember The content is much more.In order to find the interval time that can produce the best effect, psychologists have done many experiments, and it has been proved that the ideal reading interval time is from 10 minutes to 16 hours, depending on the content of memory. Within 10 minutes, the memory effect of more than one time is not very good, and more than 16 hours, part of the content has been forgotten.

Pauses in spaced learning should just allow the science to be memorized.In this way, with the help of recalled impressions, you can take another step forward on the ladder of successful memory.When you need to remember by browsing, such as remembering some names, numbers, words, etc., the effect of using interval memory is good.Suppose you want to remember 18 words, you should look at these words.In the next few minutes, I should say these words silently every half a minute or so.In this way, you will find that it is not too difficult to memorize these words.Read it again the next day, at this time you can say these words and remember them completely.

When reviewing, you can use the time-limited review training method.

(End of this chapter)