Hello..it’s been a while. I’ve been studying for the last couple days for a try-out exam. It was a prep exam for the later graduation exam on my medical residency. So, thankfully I got the number one spot for the score..it’s weird since I thought the questions was quite difficult and I think I could do better. The reason was because there were some materials that I had been studying but I forgot about it. So at that time I try to figure out my way of thinking and thought there must be some way to be more effective in studying. So here it goes :

1. Aware about how your mind-habit think

Let me clear about it. If you study about let’s say, X syndrome, what was the first thing that comes up in your mind? In the most definite way, that first word will most likely to be coming up on your brain while you catch the word during your exam. It doesn’t have to be scientific or related, it could be some silly keywords as well. Now since you get your mind-keyword, you could try to develop it from there. Making a new connection in your brain for some new knowledge is difficult, so keep it simple and silly. If X syndrome give you an imagination of Professor X in the movie X-Men so let be all the symptoms of the syndrome be pictured in you imagination of “Professor X”. You might start from there to create a “Mind-Keyword”. By putting a mind-keyword, you let your right brain to have fun as well while you’re studying.

2. Create a supporting environment to study

For me, I finally know that it works for me while listening to some background music. And remember, it have to be background music- not some music with lyrics or your favourite song. A Cafe music, Jazz, or Piano will do. It will help your distraction part of your brain get “distracted ” and let your “focus part” be focus. Let’s say in studying you need something that is comforting to balance your mind, and the music helps. But it might not work for some others, so find your supporting environment. For me, whether it’s better to do it in my room since I have no moving distraction rather than in Cafe, but sometimes being in Cafe is helping since you must done your task and feel “seen” by others so you must finish your work or study.

3. Be Active

This is very important. Be active in curiosity. Asks yourself about what you’re studying. Review with talking to yourself about what you just had to study. If you study with your friends, actively explaining to others to check whether you had remember and understand it. And this is the most important part :

How to make sure that I am going to remember this ?

Make sure to be able to answer the question after you study a material. Use your imagination with creating some acronyms, or word play, or some personal references. It helps you to unlock the key about the material that you had stored in your brain. Sometimes you’re going to forget your way of understanding the material, but a right-brain word play gems will do, the crazier it gets the better you will remember it.

4. Release the knowledge

Sometimes you spend too much time in storing the materials in your brain, but you did not have enough time to review and release your knowledge. By doing this part you will know which gap or hole in your memory that was not lost or not yet connected. If you find something that you did not forget, it usually means it’s not memorable enough for you, so back to the point number 3 and 1, make sure that you remember it by your own keyword.