In order to make it out of the exams session sane and with good grades, a learning and forgetting cycle came in very handy.
Throughout my Bachelor studies (in Europe), on top of the projects and presentations during the two terms, every year ended in a month-long final exams session which thoroughly tested the students at the theory taught that year. The tests were composed of open-ended questions which required the recollection of lots of information in a 3-hour exam span. I had about 4-5 days of preparation for each final exam during which I would memorize a great deal of information. Having a good photographic memory, by the time I would take the exam, by recalling a particular item (definition, theorem, etc) I could mentally visualize the entire page from the book where the item was located. One joke going around back then was that when you are so wired up for memorization you could memorize the entire phone book in 3 days. After the exam was over, I would give myself about one day of recuperation time and I would force out (forget) from my short term memory everything associated with that subject in order to make room for the next one. Learning to forget as quick as possible was as important as learning the theory itself for the overall success.
Slashdot Mirror
In order to make it out of the exams session sane and with good grades, a learning and forgetting cycle came in very handy.
Throughout my Bachelor studies (in Europe), on top of the projects and presentations during the two terms, every year ended in a month-long final exams session which thoroughly tested the students at the theory taught that year. The tests were composed of open-ended questions which required the recollection of lots of information in a 3-hour exam span. I had about 4-5 days of preparation for each final exam during which I would memorize a great deal of information. Having a good photographic memory, by the time I would take the exam, by recalling a particular item (definition, theorem, etc) I could mentally visualize the entire page from the book where the item was located. One joke going around back then was that when you are so wired up for memorization you could memorize the entire phone book in 3 days. After the exam was over, I would give myself about one day of recuperation time and I would force out (forget) from my short term memory everything associated with that subject in order to make room for the next one.
Learning to forget as quick as possible was as important as learning the theory itself for the overall success.