Thus, the first three to five words and the last two or three words are the most commonly remembered and words that that are repeated often such as the and of. Also words that stand out like Queen Elizabeth and words that have some associative meaning such as big, bad, Queen Elizabeth. Words that have some personal reason for being outstanding are also more easily remembered.

It is more important to observe what was not remembered. Usually anything that was not at the beginning or end of the learning period, that was not associated with other parts of the learning period, and that was not in any way outstanding. In many cases, this means most if not all of the entire bulk of the middle section of the learning period was forgotten.

Taking all this into account ask yourself how this would relate to studying a difficult text for thirty minutes where you had found your understanding good for the first ten and last ten minutes but less so in between. Would you (a) stop studying immediately and conclude that your recall rate was at its peak and you could now stop and take a break or (b) carry on, assuming that now your understanding was flowing more smoothly, you would be able to keep it going until it trailed off, and then take your break?

Many people would choose to carry on until there recall rate trailed off, and then take a break. It can, however, been seen from the results of the test that you took, and from your own personal experience, that understanding and recall are not the same. The ability to recall information peaks over time where as the ability to comprehend usually trails off slowly over time.

If you do not somehow prevent the large dip in recall that occurs during the middle of the learning period your ability to recall will decline rapidly over time even though your understanding will not vary significantly.

What you require is a memory system in which both recall and understanding can work in maximum harmony.

You can solve this problem by organizing the time in which you are learning in such a way as to enable understanding to remain high without giving your memory a chance to drop too deeply in the middle. This is easily accomplished by learning to divide your learning periods into the most beneficial time units. These units, on the average, turn out to be 20 to 30 minutes of study followed by a 3 to 5 minute break.

Instead of only two points of recall at the beginning and end of the learning period, you will have many high points of recall.

The more starts and finishes you have, the better your chances of recall.

Your memory of what you have learned actually rises during the breaks you take rather then immediately diminishing. This rise is due to the fact that your left and right hemispheres at the subconscious level are sorting the information out after you have finished taking in the information during a learning period.

To further increase your ability to recall information it is advisable at the beginning and end of each learning period to perform a very quick review and preview of what you have learned in the previous learning periods and what you are going to learn in the coming ones. This review and preview cycle helps to further consolidate the information you already have and allows your mind to prepare for a new learning session by planning how you will learn the new material.

Using this method of break taking with the memory principles and your creative imagination, you will be able to make links and associations of the material that you read making it much easier to retain large amounts of information.Revising what you have learnt

Revising what you have learnt

You should not only insure that your level of recall remains high during a learning period you should also do the same thing for your recall after the learning period.

You retain much more of what you have learned after a few minutes have passed since the end of your learning period then a few hours after your learning period. Secondly you lose 80 per cent of the information you have learned within 24 hours of having learned it.

This is why you need to make use of the time just after your learning period to review what you have studied at different time periods after your study period has ended.

If you have been studying for one hour, the high point in your recall after learning will occur approximately ten minutes afterward so this is a good time to start your first review. By reviewing what you have learnt you are ingraining and solidifying in your mind the information you have just learnt.

By reviewing the information you are preventing the large downward slope in your recall that is shown in diagram 1. Instead of the detailed information being lost to recall, it is maintained.

It is therefore important to carry out more then one review of the material. For example, if you had studied for one hour, your first review would take place after ten minutes and your second review should take place 24 hours later, 3rd review one week later, 4th review - one month later, 5th review - two months later, 6th review three months later.

1. Get a ring binder file
2. Choose a single topic that you wish to learn, for example a subject from your syllabus such as "the American civil War" from the subject history.
3. Read your exercise book notes, text books, your essays, etc. and then make one page (or more if necessary) of pattern Notes or Summary Notes to cover all the important things you will need to know for the exam.
4. For every set of notes, put at the top of the date, the subject and the topic heading. Also put a box in the corner like the one below. This is to show the dates when you are going to revise your notes.