How to Retain Information

There are 3 areas of learning that you need to be able to master to do well in your exams. They are:

Registering - How to take information in
Retaining - How to make information stick
Recalling - How to make sure you can recall information when you need it

Retaining

Accessing your memory

Scientists believe we remember things if we use the 7 keys to memory:

Outstanding
Funny
Personal
Emotional
Linked to our senses
Connected with sex
The first and last thing we learn

When revising you need to try and use these 7 keys otherwise it is unlikely that you will remember it. So when using the registering techniques use the 7 keys. For example:

When creating a mind map make sure it is outstanding by making it really bright and colourful.
When repeating information back to yourself, use crazy voices and witty rhymes.
Design actions that are imaginative and distinctive.

Mnemonics

Mnemonics work by turning the first letter of a list of items into a memorable sentence or word. For example, Never Eat Shredded Wheat for the points of a compass (North, East, South and West)

We often remember mnemonics we were taught at primary school and yet we don't use them enough when we are revising for GCSE's.

Mnemonics sometimes don't work if:

The sentence doesn't flow
They don't involve the 7 keys to memory
You can remember the mnemonic but not what it is supposed to tell you

Here are some ways of overcoming these:

Mnemonics - Stories and lists

Create a story. For example, if you want to remember the planets picture Freddy Mercury walking into Planet Hollywood leading Venus Williams by the hand and Michael Jackson is on stage singing the Earth song whilst trying to eat a Mars bar etc etc.

Attach songs or lines from songs to the objects in a list. For example, Pluto could be 'Who let the dogs out?'

Mnemonics - get moving!

Add movement to your mnemonic. To spell the word 'rhythm' put your hands on your hips and chant: ' R hythm H as Y our T wo H ips M oving' whilst swinging your hips from side to side.

Mind Pegs

Some people struggle to make stories up, therefore, finding it difficult to remember information. However, you can borrow some 'off the peg' stories or ideas. In this system each of the numbers between one and ten has an image that goes with it:

1	Bun
2	Shoe
3	Tree
4	Door
5	Hive
6	Sticks
7	Heaven
8	Gate
9	Wine
10	Hen

The first job is to memorise the sequence above

Mind Pegs - Step two

Second take the list you are trying to memorise and attach each item from that list to an image from the sequence. Make the connections personal to you.
For example take the list of seven things that living creatures do (eat, move, reproduce, excrete, sense, breathe, grow)

Bun - Eat
Shoe - Move
Tree - Reproduce
Door - Excrete
Hive - Sense
Sticks - Breathe
Heaven - Grow

Mind Pegs - Step three

Now attach an image to each pair e.g.

Bun - Eat - Imagine an elephant eating a sticky bun from your bag.
Shoe - Move - look at the elephant and realise it is wearing running shoes.
Tree - Reproduce - imagine a pair of lovebirds in a tree.
Door - Excrete - Imagine someone banging on the toilet door demanding to be let in.

Once you have a series of images you can put them together into a story.

Reports and Films

Here are other ways you could retain information:

Describe the story as a police report or speaking to a group of children.
See it as if you are filming it with a camera or watching it on a screen.

Remembering numbers

You may have to learn strings of numbers. When you try to learn them use these techniques:

Look for associations, patterns or rhythms in the sequence.
'Chunk' the sequence into blocks that you find memorable. Many people find blocks of 2 digits easy to recall.
Remember a number as a price, e.g. a four digit PIN (4560) for the bank could be expressed as Â£45.60.
Put a tune to the string of numbers. Adverts often use this technique on the TV e.g. 118 118

The linking technique

This is a method taken from Derren Brown's book. You may have seen some of his stuff on TV. Look at the following list of words and give yourself 30 seconds to remember them in order.

Telephone
Sausage
Monkey
Button
Book
Cabbage
Glass
Mouse
Stomach
Cardboard
Ferry
Christmas
Athlete

How many did you get? Probably not all of them. However, here is a technique which requires you to take each word and find a visual link with the word next to it. Not just any picture though, but one that involves the following criteria:

picture should be vivid. That means you need to clearly see the picture in your head. Also you need to allow yourself to become emotionally engaged with it for a moment. If the picture is funny look at it and find it funny. Remember to use the 7 keys to accessing memory when coming up with your pictures.
The elements in each picture should interact. Picturing them next to each other won't work. If A could be made of B or forced into B or dance with B then it would be better.
The picture should be unusual. If you link a man with a cup you may visualise them interacting easily by having a man drinking from a cup. However, this won't work. You should picture a man drinking from a massive cup or a tiny man trying to get out of the cup before the tea is poured in.

So, with this in mind I want you to try the following. I will give you the pictures. Notice how each image makes you feel. Is it funny? Disgusting? Dangerous? Take a second to feel that response and really picture what I describe to you.

Telephone/sausage - Imagine trying to dial an old fashioned phone using a flaccid, uncooked sausage. It feels revolting and cold to the fingers, and is utterly impractical to work the dial. You can turn it a little way but it just purrs back into place which is really frustrating.

Sausage/monkey - You are watching a wildlife documentary of a monkey, in the jungle, cooking a sausage over a barbecue. These are rare monkeys, and it is the first time they have been filmed. The monkey is sharing out the sausages with his monkey mates who are enjoying eating them with their own dips.

Monkey/button - In the morning you no longer need to do up the buttons on your shirt because you have got a specially trained monkey who jumps out of the cupboard each time you need some buttons doing up.

Button/book - You go to read your favourite book. It is a book that has a cover made completely from colourful buttons. To open the book there are three buttons that you have to undo which takes you a while to do and is very frustrating.

Book/cabbage - You eventually open the book to find that someone has been reading your book with cabbage on their fingers. The cabbage has gone off and the stench is terrible. Someone has played a joke on you and now you've got rotten cabbage all over your book.

Cabbage/glass - You go to the Sunderland glass centre and when you walk in you see a massive cabbage, realistically created out of glass. The artist is showing it off and making a 'pinging' sound. Everyone's standing around with glasses of wine appreciating it. Personally you think it is ugly and boring.

Glass/mouse - You go to drink a glass of wine, to find that the wine has gone and there's a tiny little mouse in the bottom of the glass. The mouse is clearly drunk, and is wearing a party hat with streamers over his shoulder and a party blow out hanging limply from his mouth.

Mouse/stomach - is feeling painful as if something is scratching it from the inside. When you look down a mouse is scratching its way out of your navel like the rats out of Hamelin.

Stomach/cardboard - A pregnant lady covering her stomach with cardboard form old boxes. She is taping it around her until she is enormous. Now she feels protected.

Cardboard/ferry - You put on the news to find that a P&O ferry has sunk at sea because in a spectacularly misjudged move to save money, the entire boat was manufactured out of cardboard. People are escaping from dinghies, unaware that they are not made from rubber but ordinary paper.

Ferry/Christmas - Instead of having an angel on your Christmas tree this year you are going to have a little ferry at the top of your tree. It has little steamers, windows and tinsel around the hull and when you put the lights on it all lights up.

Christmas/athlete - After Christmas dinner you and all of your relations go for a run around the track. You are running around the track in the snow with party hats on trying to beat the athlete Kelly Holmes. Your nana is doing superbly, racing ahead in her coat, hat and bag, giving the double gold winner a run for her money.

Now minimise this page and try to go back through the list, starting with telephone. If you didn't picture each one, go back and do that first. Then see how many you can recall without looking. Notice how much easier it is to go further than last time? Remember this is only the first time you have tried this technique as well! Once you've done it have a go at doing it backwards.

Now more than likely you will not need to remember long lists of random words for your exam, however, this technique can be used for revision whenever you need to remember certain points. For example, a case study of some kind. Pick out some key words from the information you need to memorise and follow the system of creating an image of the word and link it with the next one, following the 7 keys to accessing memory.

The Loci system

The problem with the linking system is that if you forget one word, the whole chain breaks down. This is where the loci system has an advantage. In its simplest form, the loci technique works by attaching images to places along a familiar real-life route you know well. The images are things you need to remember for the exam and you place them in fixed locations you know you will always encounter on that route.

For example, imagine it is your route to school from home. Mentally make the walk from your house, noticing a few familiar points along the way. For example, there might be a shop or two you always pass, a zebra crossing you always use or a post-box that stands out. These are your 'loci' or locations. Then as you approach the school, make the entrance way another location. Then choose other loci as you approach different classrooms. If you are using this technique for different subjects, have different loci leading to the classroom for the subject you are revising. Alternatively use rooms in your house. You need to mentally go over the route you are going to use and make sure you have picked out points that you are going to paste images to. Look at the list of things to remember and then begin your loci route. At each point along your journey mentally place an obvious image to your first location. Continue these until you are finished the list.

When you are done, you now have in your mind a familiar journey you can take, in your imagination; at any time you wish to review your revision. The joy of this system is that if you forget one location you can just move onto the next.