If you want to learn more and better...

There is new research that makes learning and memory easier. It says that students remember more and perform better if what they have read is in unfamiliar and difficult to read font.

Remembering is not made easier by making the key points stand out in bold font. It is not helped by highlighting text either. The brain works extra hard and with more concentration on difficult to read fonts. This builds circuits that sustain and last. Thus, though time consuming in the initial run, the reading done this way creates lasting memories. These memories are also easily retrievable.

So highlighting and making notes on the page margins may not help as much as an unfamiliar AND difficult to read font.

The other way to help remember more and remember better is to create pictoral notes rather than lines upon lines of text. The tetchnique of mind mapping was elevated to a level of fail-proof art form by Tony Buzan. It is easy, it is fun and it is long-lasting.

Mind maps do to studies what no other single technique can. They create unshakeable memories. And solid memory pegs.

Make them graphic, make them bold and make them colourful for mind maps to be effective tools of learning. Tony Buzan proposes a mind map for mind-mapping steps/ process



And be sure to go back your mind map the next day, then the next week and once more at the end of a month. The clear benefit of mind mapping is that the whole chapter may fit on a A4 sheet and the final preparation for exams is literally a breeze.

And do not let the fact that you are not an artist stop you! The more insane your graphics are, the more easily you will remember the information.

Always start with THE main idea in the centre of the page, create 5-7 subheadings which radiate from and are attached to the main point of origin. Focus only on COLOURS and IMAGES and the most important- CONNECTIONS.

Try these two techniques for the next exam!!