I began a new school term and this is the format we usually get notes in. Can someone tell me the best way to study and memorise this content. It is familiar to me although I feel like I need to learn a more efficient study method. I will link the slides below. N.B anything in the yellow box has to be learnt off verbatim. If anyone has any tips or resources on mnemonics please feel free to attach them. I find it hard to find good resources related to the materials I have linked.
You might want to check out the website of memory champion Alex Mullen—https://mullenmemory.com/. His main focus has been on memorizing information related to his work in medicine, which I would think would have a lot of overlap with chemistry.
Sometimes when students in the sciences use the word mnemonics they’re looking for acronyms, rhymes, phrases that represent the material being memorized. The “art of memory” actually encompasses a lot more than that, though.
I’d recommend that you spend some time exploring the Resources tab here and becoming familiar with some of the major memory techniques—particularly the memory palace and either the Major or Dominic system for memorizing strings of numbers. I think you’re going to need that foundation in order to be able to memorize effectively. (My advice would be to create characters to represent the different chemicals and their attributes that you need to memorize, then place those in a memory palace. But that advice won’t make any sense if you don’t already know how to create and manage a memory palace.)
A lot of students come here—kind of panicky—seeking instant solutions. There isn’t an instant solution.
Your challenge is partly in the difficult task of memorizing many types of information that contain no “natural” end.
A book, for instance, has a natural end (the last page).
A subject (like Chemistry, or Math, or Astronomy) has no natural end. The knowledge is endless.
This means you’ll regularly be bumping your head against new concepts and new relationships between concepts, and it also means you have to regularly find memorable ways of organizing those concepts and relationships.
I memorize mainly technical information (stuff found in textbooks).
For using mnemonics with Chemistry and other technical subjects, using only one or two mnemonic techniques is going to limit your ability to creatively organize the endless waterfall of information coming at you.
You’ll have the best results with a sturdy toolkit full of mnemonic techniques to aid you in both recall and deeper understanding of the subject matter.
Personally, my strongest recommendation for a resource is Mark Channon’s book Improve Your Memory.
He covers pretty much all the primary techniques modern mnemonists use, and I’m pretty sure there are literally more “exercises” in the book than there are pages.
Work through it earnestly, and you’ll hone a myriad of mnemonic skills and techniques rather quickly (albeit effortfully).
That said, if I were in your shoes, I’d get a couple number systems down, and dive deep on the “method of loci”/memory palace/memory journey techniques.
And I’d pair that strongly with the chain method (aka the link method).
Since technical information from textbooks and reference resources are my primary use for mnemonics, I’ll also share my response to “If you were starting all over from scratch, how would you do it?”
For your specific purposes I think it will be helpful, but if not hopefully it at least provides you something to say “No way, Jose, am I doing that!” to.