[This thread was copied here from the old forum.]
samurai 16 October, 2012 - 04:31
MY DEAR MNEMONISTS ,
Iam a member of this forum since its early days, around march of 2011. since those days, i have witnessed so many great feats performed by all the intelligent people in here. So today am here today begging for help from anyone who can solve my long standing problem. before i start i would like to tell a few words about myself.
1)SEX-MALE
2)AGE-42
3)PROFESSION-ENGINEERING GRADUATE
4)WEIGHT-NEARLY 100KGS
5)ACADEMICS- STRAIGHT As IN SCHOOL
BUT IT ALL WENT DOWNHILL SINCE COLLEGE
REASON---- I COULDNOT HOLD ON TO THE DELUGE OF INFORMATION WHICH I HAD TO LEARN IN A VERY SHORT TIME.AS A RESULT I PASSED WAY BEYOND MY SCHEDULED YEAR AND DOING ODD JOBS SINCE.BUT ONE THING I CAN SHOUT FROM THE TOP OF THE ROOF IS I WAS VERY GOOD IN MATHS AND HAD WON GOLD MEDAL IN MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD DURING MY SCHOOL DAYS,AND IT USED TO TAKE ME 30MINS TO SOLVE A 3 HOUR LONG MATHEMATICS PAPER. NEVER DID ANY DRUGS OR PARTIES.BUT I SMOKE AND HAVE TEA.COMPLETELY NON ALCHOHLIC, CAUSE I CANT AFFORD A DRINK.
6)MY PRESENT PROBLEM-some 2 years ago i started doing the cisco line of studies with the hope of becoming a ccie.i started very nicely and was able to do the intial steps that is ccna and ccnp in a very short time. then came CCIE.iwas bombarded with such a volume of info that i was completely swept away. for the last 10 months stuck up inside this dingy room with a ten inch netbook trying to remember this huge volume of information. The worst part is it is not that i dont understand, i cant remember. I start a chapter and finish it off in 3 days, then when i start revising it,poof alll blank. By learning from this forum i am using a combination of pao and locii techniques and is able to form images and store them near that locii or associate them with that locii,but while revising 70 percent of my pictures are gone.so no memory. This has lead to a frustrating and painful situation in my life. Me and my wife fight the whole time. We dont have any money and are not able to accumulate the rent also now a days.
So my humble request to all the brilliant people out here is to suggest a method by which I can transfer the images which I deposit in my short tem memory, to my my long term memory, so that I can pass this course. if it would have been some 10 years earlier,I would have just let go of the whole thing thinking that it is way higher than my intellectual capacity, but for all these years, I have been ridiculed so much by people that that it now has become a matter of honor for me to pass this exam and show them that I am not a duffer as they think. Sometimes the ugly words and looking down upon becomes so much the I think of ending my life, but I think that I should crack this test before doing something bad. So my humble plea to all the brilliant people out here ,is PLEASE HELP ME.
NeilG 16 October, 2012 - 05:01
Are you doing revision of the chapters after learning?
You learn the chapter in 3 days, but are you then scheduling in to review the chapter a day later, a week later, a month later etc.?
Also, lack of sleep is deadly for your memory - make sure you’re getting a healthy amount. A little exercise and proper breaks during intense study can help too.
Josh Cohen 16 October, 2012 - 10:57
In addition to what NeilG said, have you tried Anki? It’s a free flashcard program. You can put facts and answers into a spreadsheet (two columns: the front of card and back of card), then save the file as a .csv file and then import into Anki. Anki also can work with memory palaces or just with non-ordered locations and associations.
Not every fact has to be placed in a memory palace. Natural memory can work too. Example: when I memorized the presidents, I didn’t need to make images for all of them or even place the later presidents into a memory palace, since my natural memory held that information. (Most went in the memory palace though.)
By the way, how soon after you learn something are you reviewing it? I would review several times on the same day that you memorize it, as well as on the next day. If it takes three days to learn a chapter, I would review often on days one, two, and three, even before finishing the chapter.
Are you taking notes? I would write down the facts you want to memorize in addition to just using memory techniques. That might help.
I sometimes take a 10 or 20 minute power nap and that helps take the edge off of the stress. Naps also help solidify memories.
If you want, you could send me an email and we could talk on Skype later today or tomorrow if you have questions.
octaveslur 16 October, 2012 - 16:44
With certification exams, often the best approach is to start with sample examinations to see what kinds of questions they ask. That’s the way I and most of my colleagues do it.
I’m pretty sure you can search the internet and find some CCIE examples. Get as many current examples as you can and look through those. Once you see the areas where you weak, you can focus on those chapters that are pertinent. Make up questions that might be on the exam—i.e., they are similar to actual exam questions—and then read through training materials with that in mind. Be very pragmatic. If it doesn’t look like something that would show up on the kinds of sample exams you’ve found, leave it for later. I think you’ll find there is a lot of stuff you can safely ignore—it’s just background material that doesn’t form the core of the actual test. Probably 80% of the questions on any certification exam are going to come from less than 20% of the training texts. Make it your goal to find that 20% and spend most of your time on that.
It’s also helpful to know someone who has passed the exam who is sympathetic and helpful. That can help you get over the fears that cause stress and also hurt memory.
I would say don’t be afraid if you are using method of loci and images fade the same day. That’s normal. I think Dominic O’Brien mentions that when he’s memorizing long sequences, he spends most of his time reviewing. Mnemonics help with remembering things, but they don’t replace review. Also, and this is very important, review at the level of chunk size that work you. If study 10 questions and then look at them a few minutes later and don’t remember some of them, that means your chunk size before 1st review is too big. Instead, just try 5 questions and see how that goes.
Consider the method of fives given in this book as a very aggressive review strategy: http://www.amazon.com/You-Have-Amazing-Memory-Life-Changing/dp/190748645…
Maybe it’s something worth putting in the wiki?
Josh Cohen 16 October, 2012 - 19:55
octaveslur wrote:
Maybe it’s something worth putting in the wiki?
There’s a Spaced Repetition and Recall page in the wiki. I also just created a page for Test Taking Tips. Feel free to edit them and add new information.
Kinma 16 October, 2012 - 22:31
samurai wrote:
Sometimes the ugly words and looking down upon becomes so much the I think of ending my life, but I think that I should crack this test before doing something bad.
Start by getting out of the emotional stress you are putting on yourself.
Think of the big and small successes you had in your life.
Think of the ccna and ccnp certification that you did get. This tells me that you can learn and finish a project.
Think of how you felt after you got those 2 certificates.
The CCIE is the highest and most prestigious of the Cisco certificates so it is bound to be the most difficult.
The only way of getting information from short memory to long term is by revising, so use a revising schedule that works for you. Look up ‘spaced repetition’, since this will save you time.
Dai Griffiths 17 October, 2012 - 01:15
Will you write a list of your Loci Samuri ? It also could be having an effect on your results. We can have a look at how you construct your images and how you place them in the loci and use that to help you remember them better,
299792458 31 October, 2012 - 23:11
sometimes I will memorize info using a method that allows me to remember whatever I am studying for a year and in some cases longer. Here is a sample of the method.
Let’s say you are attempting to memorize 50 questions. Say the first 3 to 4 questions and make sure you know them then say the 5 question. Then you would go back and say the first and the answer without looking. Then say the 5 and the answer hopefully without looking.
So you would be the questions in this order.
say:
Q-1
Q-5
Q-2
Q-5
Q-3
Q-5
Q-4
Q-5
If you like you, can repeat them all over again, but if not add in the next question and do this entire process again. Usually once I get to the 20th question (or sometimes I will go even farther) I will start over, but this time starting on the 21st questions the one after the one that you finished on and if you do it fast it will take about 2 hours to go over 50 questions. This is really really time consuming and it drains you mentally, but the rewards are amazing. As an example I took Biology 2 years ago and I never really like it, but my sister asked me about something in biology and because of this I can answer the question and I even got so good to be able to recite the answer word for word. Reviewing is required: up to 3 to 5 times.