Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Techniques of Learning
Techniques of Learning
In revision before exams, pay particular attention to the earlier material you have learnt, as more of it will
have been forgotten. Leave yourself time to go over all the material you have covered. Research studies
have shown that subjective estimates of strengths and weaknesses are often faulty. Active revision, and a
few attempts at answering old exam questions should give you a better idea of where your true strengths
and weaknesses lie.
It needs emphasis that revision should be an active rather than a passive process. Revise by writing down
from memory what you know about each topic, then check with your books and notes, is sound advice.
Technique of over-learning
Over-learning is an important technique in learning and remembering. Over-learning is learning in which
repetition or practice has proceeded beyond the point necessary for the retention or recall required. Such
over-learning may, however, be necessary in view of the factors likely to affect recall, which are bound to
enter subsequently from the circumstances of the case.
It is that added time and effort beyond what is required now that you have put into learning what you
intend to recall at sometime in the future. It also means that you spend added time and energy learning
something which you already know.
As Maddox observes, material is under-learned when it has not been studied long enough for you to be
able to recall it 100 per cent correctly. It is over-learned when you continue to practise it after you can
recall it 100 per cent correctly. For example, it might take you 10 minutes to learn a vocabulary of 20
foreign words. If you then carry on learning and reciting with the same close attention as before, you are
over-learning the material. Another 5 minutes would represent 50 per cent over-learning, another 10
minutes 100 per cent.
It pays to over-learn because of the distinct gain in retention: it increases the strength of your memory
traces. If you want to remember something for a long time, you should over-learn it.
Over-learning to be effective, must be active learning. Your attention must be riveted upon what is being
learned. Therefore, over-learn actively and with conscious attention by using various methods of recitation.
As Dudley puts it, Do not repeat what you wish to remember until you barely know it, but until you know
it really well.