Page 1 of 4
Tape 2-Memorization
Test Anxiety
Learning and memorization. The most important statement that I can make
about memorization is avoid it whenever possible. The fact that it is the most
ineffective way of learning is easily demonstrated.
Turn to Figure 9, Illustration A. Learn the numbers before I call time. Time…
You should have learned them by this time. Now cover the numbers and write
them from memory. Did you try to comprehend rather than memorize? Did you
observe that a principle connects the numbers? Starting with 1, you simply have
to add 2 to each subsequent number until you reach 17; 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15,
17.
The point is; that comprehension is much more economical than memorization.
To memorize the list, you had to learn 9 numbers. Once you comprehended the
principle organizing the list, you had to memorize only three things. The first
number, add 2 and the last number, but sometimes you must memorize material
particularly in such subjects as foreign language and mathematics.
You really can't improve your memory in the sense of strengthening it. Rates of
forgetting are about equal in men and women, and remains so after they have
memorized again and again, but, you can remember material longer by using
systems of organizing that material, and that's simply making it so that you have
less to memorize.
For memorizing lists of numbers there is a technique. Look at Figure 9 again,
Illustration B. Represent each number by a word with as many letters in it as the
number; 1 by I, 2 by A's, 3 by T's and try to form the words into a sense. Do you
want to remember the value of pi to the 8th decimal place without memorizing?
Simply remember this sentence. Yes, I shot a moose yesterday as George drove.
Count the number of letters in each word putting the decimal where the comma
is; 3.14159265. Instead of learning 9 numbers which makes little sense, you only
need to remember one sentence, which does make sense, and arouses familiar
images in your mind.
Another technique is grouping. Let us say that you had the following words to
remember; tiger, hyena, tabby cat, wolf, collie, leopard, persian, spaniel. Instead
of simply drilling them into your mind by repetition, group them. Turn to Figure
10. These words first break into the groups dogs and cats.
Page 2 of 4
Then they break into the groups wild and tame. It will prove much easier to remember.
We don't really forget material so much as we lose it. We can't locate it in the mind, but we don't
forget, can be demonstrated by the hypnotist who can induce his subject to recall every event which
has happened to her or him on let's say, the 5th birthday. So your problem is to locate the material, to
have it filed under the headings say dogs and cats is just as convenient as having it located by tab in a
true filing system. All you must do is locate the tab and pull out the folder. Most of the contents will
be there. Actually in memorizing by grouping you really are comprehending the material.
Organization into groups is the necessary step before comprehension.
Finally, you can use verses if you have a knack for composing them, if you can give material rhyme or
rhythm, do it in a sing-song. You will be able to recall it much longer.
Let us conclude by recalling my main point. Avoid memorization whenever possible. It is inefficient,
exhausting and the rate of forgetting is tremendous. Instead, I suggest that you comprehend. Now I
will explain as simply as possible the steps that are involved in comprehending subject matter.
Recall, before I begin this lecture how much I have insisted that you try to comprehend rather than
memorize material, for the rate of forgetting memorized material is much quicker than that of
forgetting comprehended material. Why this is so, is not quite known, but it may be because
comprehension involves a more thorough acquaintance with the subject than does memorization. The
degree of learning is greater, and so the length of time the material is retained is greater. There is also
the probability that there is greater opportunity for the Thorndike effect, and that you are more likely
to react emotionally to material comprehended than you will to material memorized.
Turn to Figure 11. In order to learn material, you must first be motivated. Motivated enough you will
react to the material. Motivation and reaction working upon one another is a snowballing effect, and
you will reach the peak of single-minded attention that is called concentration. Motivation, reaction,
concentration having reached their peak, and having continued long enough to give you an adequate
number of ideas and facts about the subject to be learned. You now begin to organize the material.
When organization is complete, comprehension occurs.
Now I will go over these steps once more to define them more carefully and to give you some tips
about how to make sure that each step occurs.
Motivation first… Definition… Any idea, need, emotion or organic state that promotes you into
action. In studying, you are most likely to have strong motivation if your studies have personal
meaning.
The second great necessity is to know what you must get from your study and how to get it.
Techniques for finding personal meaning and subject matter are rather hard to give; for such depends
so much on the person himself. As a start though, ask how will this material affect my future life? You
may have to work on an answer, but trust in the thesis that no knowledge is without its positive
effects. Another way of finding personal meaning is to simply invest some time and energy in the
subject.
Page 3 of 4
Once you have obtained some basic skills that other people don't have, you will become pleased
enough in your ability to consider it a personal achievement; part of your developing identity. I want
to pause to demonstrate how important personal meaning is to the act of learning.
Let us say that I was a medical doctor and casually said to you that I had read an article the other day
about hyper streptococcus, and then continued on to talk of my wife, children and the church to which
I belong. Then if I asked you what I had just said, would you remember? If I went on to say hyper
streptococcus is a narrowing of the lymph gland which had become infected, you're likely to remember
it longer when now the word has some personal meaning to you. You've begun to comprehend it for
you already know what throat, swelling and glands mean. If then, I said you have hyper streptococcus
and will be dead from it in ten days, you will no doubt remember what I have said for the rest of your
life, even if I was wrong and you lived for 60 years instead of 10 days, you will doubtless remember this
moment and the meaning of the word. In fact, being an intelligent college level student, you would
probably instantly begin to pour through your medical text books to be sure that you knew all that a
man or a woman should know about the subject, to see if it was a painful death, to see what research
was going on, and in a short time, you would probably be able to astonish even a doctor with the
amount of knowledge you had on this technical subject. So because of the great personal meaning that
the subject had to you, you learned rapidly and easily. People probably had to urge you to stop.
Try to make your studies this personal. Try to connect them with your most powerful need, and
driven study will be no great problem to you.
This is by the way the condition of the true student, and the condition of the dedicated professional.
Their work is of greatest importance to them. I will give you techniques of knowing what to get from
your study and how to get it. These are best discussed under the subjects of textbook reading and
college lectures. For now, know that your motivation problems will be a lot less problematic if you
can begin to fruitfully work the moment you start to study, instead of having to puzzle over your goals
for some minutes. One of your best assets in this problem will be your college professor. Understand
the assignments thoroughly and you will have much less difficulty.
Now let us consider the second step; reaction. Definition; activity aroused by a stimulus, a response.
In short, it is what happens to you when you discover that you have hyper streptococcus. You
respond, activity occurs, your heart pounds more quickly, glands secrete, you begin to think and to
desire to learn more. It is quite obvious that you must react to learn. Learning is not a passive
activity. For instance, the sleep learning projects have had no remarkable effect upon their subjects.
You cannot soak up knowledge. You must go after it aggressively. A special problem is that often
people don't really know when they have reacted. A student will read a book and still not have
reacted enough to ensure that he has passed this step to comprehension. An indispensable technique,
one which I will suggest that you use in note taking procedures, is to put the new information into
your own words. This prevents you from mechanically copying down what you see or hear. I believe
it is very important to react in this manner called resuscitation, so much so, that I believe if you don't
do it, your main mode of learning will probably have to be memorizing.
The third step is concentration. To bring your full attention to a common center. The object of your
study, the lecture, or the book. To bring a part of your attention won't do. You must bring all of it.
All of it should be on me right now.
Page 4 of 4
Techniques of ensuring concentration… Remove anything in your room which will catch your
attention. Get the picture of your boyfriend or girlfriend into the dresser drawer. You can admire it
later on as a reward for having studied so well that evening. Along the same line, discipline yourself so
that you can sweep away such attractive clutter from your mind while studying. The good student can
turn him or herself off and on like a light switch. Do only one thing when you study, study.
As a side light, a student motivated by anxieties or outright fears, isn't going to be doing too well in
studying, if those are acute, for they will be the upper most in his or her mind while he or she studies,
and will hasten his or her rate of forgetting immeasurably. As a motivation for study, if you can replace
fear and anxiety with a single-minded attention to work, you will have learned a valuable skill which will
make your life a much less painful one.
Organization is the fourth step of comprehension. Definition… In study to know what the main ideas
are, to know what the supporting ideas are, to know what the supporting facts are, to know what facts
and ideas you can leave out. Relate all of these to one another from the most important, to the least
important, and you have organized. In short, you must grasp the pattern, the structure, the skeleton of
the assignment. In college work, that would be to know first what the main ideas are, and then in
descending order what the lesser material is. A demonstration is in order here.
Turn to Figure 12. The A level of learning is the level you are at when you begin something for the
first time. For instance, economics. A new and strange subject many of you will encounter for the
first time at college. Everything seems disorganized, senseless. The only way to learn it seems to be is
to memorize it. Don't become demoralized. Start looking for the pattern. Start trying to organize the
details into ideas and pretty soon patches of clarity will shine through and you will be at the B level of
your learning process. Note how much easier the B level is to learn than the A level was, although we
have exactly the same letters in each. In the A level, you have 15 things to learn. In the B level, you
have 6 things to learn, but the well-organized chapter has essentially one thing to learn, the C level.
One body of carefully organized material, one structure that contains all the subordinate ideas, B, and
all the isolated facts, A. So the real point is that 1 and 1 make 2. A fundamental thesis in mathematics
rather than a garbled set of 15 letters.
The textbook should be set up to allow you to find the C level pretty rapidly. It will have
introductions, summaries, et cetera, to act as aides to locate main ideas. Thus, find the main ideas first,
C, the subordinate ideas second, B, the facts third, A. This applies to all subjects, even those in which
you are only tested on facts; for you see how much easier they will be to learn if you find the central
ideas which connect them.
Finally, comprehension… Definition… To grasp the meaning of something, to understand something,
perception of a subject which is now quite clear to you and related to knowledge which you had
previously. Technique. Having obtained the idea and organization which made most sense to your
lecturer or textbook author now put it into your own terms. So state the idea and re-organize it so
that it makes most sense to you. Having done that, you have comprehended it. If you leave it in the
author's terms, you will have to memorize, unless you are thoroughly acquainted with those terms, in
which case you probably didn't have to learn. The resulting pleasure is by the way, one of the
strongest motives for study.
This concludes cassette number 2.