Mnemonics for study (2nd ed.) (Study Skills)

conscious mnemonic devices can help to organize and cue the learning for ready retrieval until sustained, deliberate practice and repeated use form the deeper encoding and subconscious mastery that characterize expert performance.

Recognition knowledge—the kind that might have gotten you through a multiple-choice test—is suddenly inadequate in the face of a mostly blank sheet of paper. If you want to eventually retrieve information from your memory, you need to practice retrieving it when you study (Karpicke 2011). Retrieval practice has been well studied and is one of the m

Madness. How can taking an identical test three times in a row produce such a large effect? Odd as it is, this follows rules of common sense. When you study by reading through a list multiple times, you’re practicing reading, not recall. If you want to get better at recalling something, you should practice recalling it. Our blank sheet of paper, wh

but told to use different study strategies: reviewing the text a single time, reviewing it repeatedly, free recall, and concept mapping.

A powerful form of elaboration is to discover a metaphor or visual image for the new material.