Details vs. General knowledge and Appliance vs. time

General Memory Chat
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Hi Guys!

In short: I’m looking for positive experience with the best ratio and technique on inefficient, but exact memorizing (writing it down until fail proof) of near-verbatim content and just ‘reading over and glossing’ it.

Background: I am studying for a very important and heavily content loaded exam, that is regularly mystified, because there is no direct feedback or ‘trials’ on an official level (at least absolutely no ‘sure’ information) and a basic insecurity about what is actually expected. There is one sure thing though: the more I know and the more breadth the knowledge has, the better its application works and the better I can train for the actual exam without loss of motivation over ‘failed’ previous trials.

I’ve worked a lot and hard the past months and I tried working over the details as fast as I could - and I failed hugely. I have left around 3 months to work on 4 main challenges, one of them consisting of exact knowledge of content and 3 of them testing the ability of candidates to apply learnt knowledge.

I fail hardest in the part, where I am supposed to learn exact sentences by heart (“heart part ;)”) . I spend - literally - hours, obsessing over it, getting sleepy even and -also- actually falling asleep, but it is no use. When I write it down many times, it works better, but the efficiency is still far too bad and the outcome still fades very soon.

I am familiar with the concept of memory palaces, but am not well able to apply it, because many parts of the heart-part are very similar. This may sound like an advantage - because the individual parts of the heart-part are big and forgotten easily, this advantage turns into a disadvantage - because I keep getting confused.

In the rest of the exams, I am trying to avoid learning details, but just reading of course doesn’t help at all. The amount is just too big to be operated on in a way I am familiar with.

So there it is. Is any one interested, in trying to help me out? :slightly_smiling_face:

I am very willing to try out new ideas!

Have a good day!

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Have you ever tried writing down the sentence but leaving some words out? Then later when you review it again, you’ll have to fill in the gaps. You can even take this a bit further by only writing the first letter of each and every word and then try to reconstruct the sentence. This has helped me for the rare occasions where I had to memorize something verbatim.

Do you review the information you learn with spaced repetition?
How many of these sentences do you have to learn by heart?

If you could make some specific examples of the sentences you’re trying to memorize we might be able to help you a bit more.

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Memory palaces are excellent and I think they will solve your problem. Have a look at this book for details.

You can remember anything with memory palaces. Even similar things like binary. It is easy if you know the technique:

00101010111111001010101011000010101

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No I have not tried that, but I will have to, thanks! I’m just really torn in between time-pressure and well sitting knowledge.

As it is ‘just’ one part of the exam, I cannot allow myself to solely commit to this (even if I really wanted to).

One part of the sentences (and the structure, which i have to know, too) are like this:

(title page, description of subpart with abstract title, for example “foundation of limited company x with uique compay number y, seated in z, (…)”)
(some adressing, based on context),
(one or several adressees with name, function, birthdate, other specific details based on the current subpart),
explain/manifest/swear (varying on subpart),
(other details on this page varying on greater context, e.g. stamp it or not)
(following pages with individual structures and parts based on context, sometimes with legal references, sometimes not, individual closing lines which varies based on context),
(following documents that are guided by similar, but slightly different rules than the first one, but are connected and refered to by the first one)

Now all of the documents of course rely on a specific situation with varying names, role, subaubparts etc, but all of them have critical information on them (sentences), that always stay the same, no matter how different the entire document looks in the end.

In the end, this -“one” - document, will just be but another part of the whole solution consisting of various main documents.

So to just ‘know’ is just one part - ‘apply’ is a further one. I do fail already at the first part, no matter how much time and dedication i seem to put into it - and as I said, time is critical…

As you may have guessed by now, the abstraction described arises from the content being coded for many situations resulting in a concrete application :slight_smile:

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I tried it several times with Memory Palaces and have seen and read content on it - the problem is just, that I find it extremely difficult to find a coherent solution, that does not involve using different images for words, that are pretty hard to encode in imagery, because they describe abstract concepts. Plus, time is really critical…

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Maybe you could use the “trailblazing” method of memorisation. This is how a lot of people remember speeches and text. Read a few words of the text, close your eyes and recall it aloud. Then read a few more words, close your eyes and say it all aloud. Keep adding a few words at a time. When you get to a part you’ve forgotten, really try to remember it, and then check the answer. The struggle to remember is important. Keep doing this until the whole text is memorised.

This is brute force rote learning but it is effective. This is how I plan to learn French phrases. Just repeat them until muscle memory forms and they are second nature to say.

I’m surprised you have to learn so much verbatim. It’s seems to be quite an unusual task in today’s world of computers.

You could use a combination of rote learning and a memory palace. ie memorise phrases by rote and use a few mnemonic prompts in a memory palace to string the phrases together.

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Well thanks, this sounds like something I should do!

I am always searching for ‘quiet’ ways, but I am running out of options, so this actually sounds like a very good idea.

Please don’t get me started on the ‘what’ and ‘why’ - it simply does not make sense. It would be a grave and undue violation of the right professional conduct, if the people actually relied on their memories in the real world. This test is designed to frustrate, though. They want you to give up. The same goes with the other 3 parts. Never on any timeline on earth would you not have material available, to solve the problems. As I said. It is no use :wink:

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I have recently been digging into Gary Lanier’s “Verbatim” method, which, not surprisingly, is an approach to memorizing text verbatim. I would highly recommend you do a search here for “lanier method.” (I’m not sure why it isn’t the go-to recommendation here when folks say they need to memorize verbatim—unless the folks asking are new to memory techniques and Lanier’s system requires some prior experience/knowledge.)

BUT: Do not watch Gary’s videos. While his system is brilliant, I feel that he’s so immersed in it that he doesn’t know how to explain it clearly, step-by-step for someone who has no idea what he’s talking about. (Apologies if you’re reading this, Gary!)

However, I understood his system very clearly after reading the excellent description here: Lanier Verbatim Memory System - Pastebin.com. (If you’re going to dig into this, you must read to the end of the document. The first page or two is an outline for what’s to be described later; if you find that confusing, just skip down to where the technique description actually begins.)

SECOND “BUT”: Lanier’s method is not for beginners. If you’re not familiar with how a memory journey works, how to make memorable images, and how to link images together, this may not be the technique for you. However, you may find helpful tips—particularly with regard to substitute words—that may be helpful for you, no matter what technique you use for verbatim memorizing. (I found his approach to substitute words mind-opening.)

Bob

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There’s also a tag that organizes the posts on one page: lanier-system

And an attempted illustration: Read this to better understand the Gary Lanier system and memorizing text verbatim!

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Miniature memory palaces.

I recommend you browse this thread. There is a lot of discussion about different kinds of memory palaces including contributions by @LynneKelly, author of Memory Craft on the Lukasa and other ideas. There’s a lot of good material there and it’s still active.

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My opinion on rote memorization is that it is effective if you have the time to do it properly. The mistake is to put too much effort into concentration. Beyond a minimal threshold of attention, concentration does not make the method more effective. On the contrary, it tires the brain and interferes. Frequency and time are the keys. Repeating the words, almost mindlessly several times a day every day is all it takes. But you can’t force it and you certainly can’t ‘cram’ it.

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That was my take. His video did nothing for me. I had intended to go back and give them another try later.

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There’s a strength coach called Pavel Tsatsouline and he asks his students to punch a bag being held by another student. First they punch at 50% power, then 60%… then 100%. The most powerful punch is often around 80%. When we try too hard we add some tension and that corrupts the flow. It’s an interesting concept!

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It’s funny how you say this - I am (how could it be any different) under huge pressure. I haven’t mentioned it, but the success rate is around 10% - and nobody ‘uninformed’ or ‘stupid’ is taking this test. It’s all about remembering and reproducing as fast as possible the best tailored solution to a before unknown problem.

In general, I do not have problems remembering certain situations, jokes, feelings or even melodies. But this exercise is so dull and uninspiring, but still extremly important - I have not succeded in finding a good concept yet. Plus time pressure. 3 months may sound like a lot, but measured at my current performance it is very little…

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I do have some time. I am actually very much used to rote studying - be it, because or is necessary (musical practice), or be it, because I need to filter out ‘important’ concepts with a vast background of ‘latent’ information kept there on purpose. The other three of the tests- very unlike the verbatim part - are like that. If I tried to apply the same quality/importance/standard to all of the material, I’d either never finish (which it looks like) or couldn’t apply anything (because everything is loosly connected and it is unclear, whether I need a certain concept at the moment or not).

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Thanks Bob,

I will give it a short glance :wink:
It though certainly looks very time-consuming to implement first!