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

Chapter 32 Thoroughly Challenge Your Memory

The strength of memory directly determines your academic performance
Memory directly affects students' learning ability. Without memory, learning cannot proceed.The British philosopher Bacon said that all knowledge is but memory.The memory method and the skills involved are the key factors for students to improve their learning efficiency and academic performance. Without the knowledge reserve provided by memory and the scientific method of mastering memory, learning cannot be highly efficient.Nowadays, students have heavy learning tasks and are overwhelmed with various exams. If they can't memorize knowledge, their academic performance can be imagined. When they take the exam, their minds go blank, and the exam can only end in failure.

If we regard learning as a long journey, then memory is like your vehicle, and the speed of the vehicle is directly related to your academic performance, that is to say, it will directly determine the level of your learning efficiency.As the saying goes, a year's journey by bullock cart is not as far as a spaceship can travel in one hour.In today's increasingly fierce competition, whoever develops the potential of memory first will become the strongest in the future.

According to research by American psychologist Meyer, under the influence of external stimuli, learners first generate attention, select information related to the current learning task through attention, ignore other irrelevant stimuli, and activate related factors in long-term memory. knowledgeable.After the newly input information enters the short-term memory, the learner finds out various internal connections contained in the new information and connects with the activated original information.Finally, the new knowledge that is understood is stored in long-term memory.

Under certain conditions, learners activate, extract relevant information, and act on the environment through external responses.In short, after the new information is noticed by the learner, it enters the short-term memory, and at the same time, the relevant information in the activated long-term memory also enters the short-term memory.Old and new information interact to generate new meanings that are stored in long-term memory systems, or external responses are generated.

Specifically, the role of memory in learning mainly includes the following points:
1. Learning new knowledge is inseparable from memory
Learning knowledge is always from shallow to deep, from simple to complex, step by step.We say that before learning new knowledge, one should review old knowledge first, because only when new and old knowledge are connected can new knowledge be memorized more effectively.Forgetting the relevant "old" knowledge, but trying to learn new knowledge well, is as ridiculous as trying to build buildings in the sky.If you forget all the knowledge in "Electricity" in junior high school when studying "Electricity" in high school, then it will be difficult to study "Electricity" in high school.A Czech educator said: "All the knowledge taught later is based on the knowledge taught first." It can be seen how important it is to remember the knowledge taught first to continue learning.

2. Memory is the prerequisite for thinking
Facing problems, arouse thinking, and strive to solve them, but once you leave the memory, thinking cannot proceed, and problems cannot be solved naturally.If you forget the axiom or theorem of congruence of triangles when doing exercises to prove the congruence of triangles, you will not be able to think about solving the problems.It is often said that concepts are the cells of thinking. Sometimes the reason why you can't think is because you forget the concepts and principles you need to use when thinking.After looking up or asking for advice and recalling it again, the interrupted thought process can continue.Song Dynasty scholar Zhang Zai said: "If you don't remember, you can't remember." This is very reasonable.If the perceived things cannot be preserved and reproduced in the mind, the "processing" of thinking will become water without a source, and there will be no cooking without rice.

3. Good memory can help improve learning efficiency
People with strong memory will have a repository of knowledge in their minds.In new learning activities, when certain knowledge is needed, it can be used at any time, thus ensuring the rapid learning and thinking of new knowledge, saving a lot of time for searching, reviewing, and re-understanding, and greatly improving the efficiency of learning .

An excellent student seldom looks up the dictionary when reading or writing, and rarely looks up the principles, laws, formulas, etc. when doing exercises, because this knowledge has been firmly stored in his brain and can be read at any time. access.

The secret of many top students solving problems quickly is that they have memorized the commonly used calculation results and the coefficients of commonly used chemical equations in their minds, so they don’t need to spend time on these simple calculations and balancing when solving problems , so that more time can be spent on thinking about problems.Because the memory is firm and accurate, the errors caused by temporary calculations are greatly reduced.

Many teenagers with poor academic performance are caused by memory deficiency.Scientific studies have shown that adolescents with poor academic performance have two problems with memory: First, compared with students with high academic performance, those with low academic performance have difficulty in memory tasks.Second, the memory problems of poorer students may be due to inappropriate use of memory strategies.

Although memory is a learning ability that everyone has, scientific and effective memory methods are not mastered by every learner.In learning, teenagers should choose key points, difficult points, and key points according to the learning purpose and requirements of the course, and then use some memory methods to carry out scientific memory according to the actual situation of the memory object, so as to achieve twice the result with half the effort.Summarize a good method suitable for your own learning characteristics in your own learning activities, use scientific memory, improve academic performance, consolidate learning effects, and truly achieve success in learning and use what you have learned.

Finding a measure of how good a memory is

Many students are not clear about the quality standards of memory. Some people are greedy for more and faster, and the knowledge memorized today will be forgotten tomorrow. This kind of memory is only a kind of satisfaction for people in a short period of time, and it is not a real memory.

So how to measure the quality of memory?Psychologists believe that the quality of a person's memory should be comprehensively inspected based on the memory's agility, durability, correctness and availability.

1. Agility

The agility of memory reflects the speed of memory, and refers to the amount of knowledge that an individual can remember in a unit of time, or the amount of time required to remember certain knowledge.The famous bridge scientist Mao Yisheng has a very quick memory. When he was a child, he watched his grandfather copy the ancient text "Dongdu Fu", and he could recite the full text as soon as his grandfather finished copying it.If you want to test the agility of a person's memory, the best way is to remember the time it takes you to memorize a passage.

2. Persistence

Persistence of memory refers to the length of time that remembered things are kept.When different people memorize different things, their memory persistence is different.Cai Wenji, an outstanding poetess in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, could recall more than 400 precious ancient documents from memory.

3. Correctness

The correctness of memory refers to the maintenance of the nature of the original memory content.If there are too many errors in memory, not only will the memory lose its value, but it will also be harmful.

4. Spareness

The standby of memory refers to the ability to quickly and accurately extract the required information from memory according to one's own needs.The brain is like a "warehouse", and the reserve of memory requires people to be good at extracting the things stored in the "warehouse".Although some people memorize a lot of knowledge, they cannot retrieve it at will as needed, so that in order to answer a small question, they need to recite a lot of things to get the correct answer.Just like a disorganized warehouse, when the goods need to be picked up, the custodians are in a hurry and cannot find them for a while.

These four aspects of memory indicators are interrelated and indispensable.Ignoring any one aspect of memory metrics would be one-sided.The agility of memory is a prerequisite for improving memory efficiency.Only by remembering quickly can a lot of knowledge be acquired.The persistence of memory is an important performance of good memory.Only by remembering it can it be used.The correctness of memory is the life of memory.Only when you remember accurately can the information in memory be valuable, otherwise other indicators of memory will depreciate accordingly.Spareness of memory is also important.Only with the reserve of memory can we have the flexibility of wisdom and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances.

In addition to the above four indicators to measure the quality of a person's memory, the breadth of memory is also an important measure of memory.The breadth of memory refers to the number of group memory objects that can be correctly reproduced after an impression is made in the brain.

For example, first write some words on the blackboard or cardboard: pen, book, sea, sun, bird, student, red flag, etc., read them carefully, and then repeat them. The more words you repeat, the more memory you will have. high.The typical way to measure the breadth of a person's memory is to repeat numbers: first write a series of numbers on paper, read them once, and then repeat them. Some people can say 8 digits, some can say 12 digits, and some can only After explaining 4-5 characters clearly, most people can repeat 8-9 characters.The more you say, the better, of course, but this only represents an indicator of memory.

In short, to measure the quality of memory, it should be considered comprehensively, instead of emphasizing or ignoring certain aspects.

Master the law of memory and break through the learning bottleneck

Burden reduction has always been a hot topic. Although reducing the workload is a way to reduce the burden, it should be a better way to master the laws of memory and learn according to the laws of memory.

It is very important for teenagers to learn more efficiently by mastering the rules and rules of memory.Memory and the brain are complex, but not mysterious, and understanding how they work can better enhance your learning potential.

The human brain is a treasure house of memory. The things that the human brain has experienced, the problems it has thought about, the emotions and emotions it has experienced, and the actions it has practiced can all become the content of people's memories.For example, words, phrases and sentences in English learning, and even the content of articles are all completed by memory.There is a process from "remembering" to "recalling", which includes four processes of remembering, maintaining, recognizing and recalling.

The so-called memory is divided into two aspects: knowledge and memory.Know first and remember later, and remember in knowledge.The so-called retention refers to the material that has been memorized and stored in the brain in an orderly manner.Recognition refers to memorized materials, and when they appear in front of you again, you can recognize them.Reappearance refers to the reappearance of the impression of the memorized material in the brain.These links are indispensable.As long as you carry out conscious training in the learning activities and master the laws and methods of memory, you can improve and enhance your memory.

For young students, the memory of some basic concepts, laws and other instrumental basic knowledge in various subjects is even more essential.Therefore, in the process of learning, we should not only impart knowledge, but also pay attention to the cultivation of our own memory ability.Mastering certain memory rules and memory methods and developing the habit of scientific memory can improve students' learning efficiency.

Memory has many laws, such as the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve is one of the very important laws, we can conduct timely and appropriate review according to this law, and over-learn appropriately so that our memory can be preserved.At the same time, you can't memorize too many things at one time, which is related to the law of the breadth of memory.The breadth of memory refers to how much you can remember correctly when some very long memory material is presented to you for the first time.The more presented, the better the span of your memory.The breadth of memory is getting bigger and bigger, and the difficulty of memory is getting bigger and bigger.The longer the length of numbers you can remember, the better the span of your memory.

American psychologist G. Miller obtained the average value of short-term memory of general adults by measuring.Miller found that the average human memory span is 7, that is, most people can only remember up to 7 independent "blocks" at a time, so the number "7" is called "the magic number seven".We use this rule to control the amount of short-term memory within 7, so as to use the brain scientifically and make the memory advance steadily.

To sum up, memory is as regular as all other mental activities.In learning, students should actively follow the rules of memory and use scientific memory methods to memorize, so as to continuously improve their learning effects and enhance their interest in learning.

Improve the habit of thinking, break the stereotype of thinking
A mindset is a pattern of thinking, the sum total of a set of tools and procedures the mind is accustomed to using.

Generally speaking, a mindset has two characteristics: one is its formal structure; the other is its strong inertia.

A mind-set is a purely "formal" thing, that is, it is an empty model.Only when the object of thinking is filled in, and only after the actual thinking process occurs, will the existence of the thinking pattern be revealed. Without the actual thinking process, there is no thinking pattern.

The second characteristic of the mind-set is that it has an extremely powerful inertia.This inertia is manifested in two aspects: one is the establishment of new stereotypes; the other is the demise of old stereotypes.Generally speaking, it takes a long time to establish a certain mindset, but once it is established, it can dominate people's thinking process, mental attitude and even practical behavior "without thinking", and it is very stable and even stubborn.

Once people form a habitual thinking pattern, they will habitually follow the pattern of thinking to think about problems, unwilling and unable to change the direction and think about problems from another angle. This is a kind of stupid and stubborn "intractable disease" that many people have. ".

For example, when watching a magic show, it’s not that the magician has any special brilliance, but that our thinking is too conventional, and we can’t figure it out, so we are fooled.For example, when a person miraculously comes out of a tightly tied bag, we are always used to thinking how he can come out of the tightly tied top of the cloth bag, instead of thinking that the bottom of the cloth bag can be used for fuss, and the bottom can be equipped with a zipper.

Once teenagers form a certain mindset, it will inevitably have a great impact on memory.Because the thinking pattern makes students remember in a relatively fixed way. The thinking pattern will not only hinder students from adopting new methods of memory, but also greatly affect the accuracy of memory, which is not conducive to the improvement of memory effect and academic performance. For example, many people think that Listening to music while studying will affect the learning effect, and you can't remember anything, but in fact, some studies have shown that choosing good music can develop the right brain, thereby improving the efficiency of learning and memory.Therefore, in the process of learning and memorizing, teenagers should consciously break their own thinking patterns.

So, how do you break out of the mindset?We can start from the following aspects:

1. Break through the stereotypes of books
There was a boxer who was familiar with boxing techniques, talked about boxing skills with others, and was indeed invincible when he beat people, but he just couldn't beat his wife.The boxer's wife is a housewife who doesn't know what boxing is, but every time she fights, she can always beat the boxer to the ground.

Someone asked the boxer, "Where did all your kung fu go?"

The boxer said bitterly: "This dead woman, every time she fights with me, she always doesn't follow the moves according to the number, which makes my boxing skills useless!"

The boxer is proficient in boxing and is invincible, but when he meets his wife who doesn't follow the routine, he is helpless.

"Familiarity with boxing" is a good thing, but boxing is dead. If you blindly use book knowledge, everything starts from books, takes books as the key link, and divorces from reality. This kind of thinking pattern formed by book knowledge will make people fail.

"Knowledge is power." But if you study hard, you are limited to observing problems from the viewpoint and standpoint of textbooks. Not only can you not give people strength, but it will obliterate our ability to innovate. Therefore, while learning knowledge, we should maintain our thinking Flexibility, focusing on learning fundamentals rather than memorizing rules so that knowledge is useful.

2. Breaking through the rule of thumb
People who made major breakthroughs in the history of science were almost not the famous people at that time, but young people with little knowledge and experience, because their brains have unlimited imagination and creativity, and they dare to think and do anything .The following people are the best examples:

Einstein proposed special relativity at the age of 26;

Bell invented the telephone at the age of 29;
Siemens invented electroplating at the age of 19;
At the age of 16, Pascal wrote a famous book on conic sections...

3. Breaking through stereotyped perspectives
The famous French singer Maddie Mapple has a beautiful private garden. Every weekend, people will come to her garden to pick flowers, pick mushrooms, go camping and have picnics, making the garden a mess and dirty.The housekeeper made people surround the fence and put up a wooden sign saying "no entry into private gardens", but it didn't help.After Maddie Maple learned about it, she put up some big signs at the intersection, which read prominently: "Please pay attention! If you are bitten by a poisonous snake in the forest, the nearest hospital is 15 kilometers away, about half an hour's drive away. can be reached.” Since then, no one has broken into her forest garden.

This is to change the angle of view and change the blockage into dredging, and the goal was easily achieved.

4. Break through the directional formula
George Bernard Shaw (British satirical dramatist) was very thin. Once he attended a banquet, a potbellied capitalist satirized him: "Mr. Bernard Shaw, as soon as I saw you, I knew that there was a famine in the world!" Bernard Shaw was not only not angry, but smiled Said, "Oh, sir, when I see you I shall know the cause of the famine."

The story of "Sima Guang smashing the vat" also illustrates the same truth.The conventional method of saving people is to pull people out from the water tank, that is, to let people leave the water.Sima Guang was quick-witted and hit the tank with a stone to make the water flow out of the tank, that is, the water leaves the person. This is reverse thinking.Reverse thinking is the reverse thinking of natural phenomena, physical changes, and chemical changes, so that innovation often occurs.

5. Break through the stereotypes of dimensions
How to plant 4 trees on a piece of land so that the distance between them is equal?
The answer was to plant one of the trees on top of the hill.The reason why I can't find the answer is that I am used to two-dimensional thinking and have not established the habit of three-dimensional spatial thinking, and the traffic in modern metropolises is the product of three-dimensional thinking.

Only by breaking through the stereotypes of thinking can you expand the content you want to remember and connect it with other knowledge, thereby improving memory efficiency.

(End of this chapter)