Want to know the secret of speedy financial services revision?

This article is excellent reading for anyone, studying for their exams, who wants to improve memory retention. Want to know the secret of speedy financial services revision?

Written by Lysette Offley

Yeah, me too!

Only kidding!

• What do we already know about revising?
• There are as many ways of revising as there are people revising.
• Some strategies work better than others.
• And some of those strategies work well for some people, and not so well for others.

So where does that leave you?

Well, despite the differences between us (because, after all, we’re all human beings, and therefore have a lot in common) it turns out…

Ready?

Visual skills are key

It turns out that the more we use our visual skills, the more efficient our revision will be and the faster we’ll learn.

Don’t panic!

If you’re thinking that you’re not very ‘visual’; that you’re not imaginative enough or that you can’t see pictures in your head, you’re probably worrying for no reason.

Admittedly, some people seem to be able to do this more easily than others, but we can all do it to some extent, and starting from wherever you are, the more you grow that visual ‘muscle’, the quicker you’ll get through the material you need to learn.

We humans are highly visual creatures. About a third of our brain is dedicated to processing the information coming in through our eyes. That’s a lot of brain-power!

So let’s use it!

Suggestions for Using Your Visual ‘Muscle’

Here’s how I suggest you capitalise on this.

It goes without saying (doesn’t it?) when revising, that you will have already identified the keywords, and are in the process of actively manipulating them, giving your brain enough time to make a pattern of the material and to send it to your long-term memory…

So as you set out your hand-written/hand-drawn notes (not typed, remember), include some or all of the following, so once you’ve done the hard work of getting the information into your head, you’ll still be able to remember it later.

• Colour – not randomly, but strategically, to group similar ideas together and separate them from other ideas;
• Shape and Space – so when you close your eyes, you can still see, in your mind’s eye, where on the page the information is;
• Sections – breaking the material into bite-sized, brain-friendly chunks;
• Images – a picture paints a thousand words, and since you already use pictures in your head, for example, to remember where you parked the car – you know how powerful they are;
• Lines – to emphasise connections between ideas;
• Symbols – less is more. The less you can write/draw in your notes, the easier they’ll be to remember – so use symbols where possible, instead of words. e.g. % instead of percentage, cf instead of compared with. You get the idea;
• Likewise, diagrams and tables cut out the waffle, and are easier to recall.

Of course, dissecting and reassembling the information you’re learning, in your own unique way, takes focus and effort. But it’s this very effort that makes the strongest connections in your brain, which clearly means that you’ve actually learned the information in the first place.

And the more energy you put into really learning it now, the more chance you have of remembering it later, guaranteeing you an easier time of it in your exams.
See?

http://www.genius-material.com/