I figure you all have had to memorize something for school or whatever at some point. So what's the best way you've figured out how to do it?

 

I have two weeks to finish memorizing 'To be or not to be' and I've got the first six-seven lines or so. :P So instead of just memorizing I'm posting on TIF. :roll: Anyway any random advice/suggestions you'd have would be useful.

 

To be or not to be, that is the question

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing, end them. To sleep: to die;

No more. And by a [something I don't remember; sleep?] to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to. Tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To sleep; to die [?]

something something tsometihieng.

 

I have the soliloquy written in five line stanzas on notecards in my planner. I stare at them randomly during class and whatnot. There is probably a way better/more effective way.

When I had to memorize a poem for English I read the first line. Looked away and repeated it.

Then read first two lines looked away and repeated them, continued this till I was done with the poem.

 

I did that 2 times and I had it completely memorize.

I could also recite it for months afterward as well.

Well everyone works in very different ways so it's hard to give you tips. Personally, I tend to work on one line at a time. Your brain can more easily memorize groups of words than a huge block of text so memorizing one line at a time and slowly combining them will work better than just rereading the whole thing over and over. Other people like to:

 

• Put it to a melody, then it will feel more like memorizing a popular song.
  
• Memorize while chewing gum... I heard chewing is supposed to help with memorization? :lol:
  
• I've had friends who had wonderful luck with connecting whatever they were trying to memorize with something funny/sexual. That never worked with me though. And I'm not even sure if I explained that very well.

For vocab words I make a weird sequence. It works surprisingly well.

Here are a few examples.

 

Bucolic - Butane - Fire - Forest Fire - Forest - Charmingly Rural

Strident - Gum - Girls always ask for gum - High pitched

Belabor - Labor - Work - Over and over and over

 

It's really weird but it works for me and some of my friends.

I've had friends who had wonderful luck with connecting whatever they were trying to memorize with something funny/sexual. That never worked with me though. And I'm not even sure if I explained that very well.

That's what I've always done. :unsure:

For every speech I've had to memorize in a week or less (so all of them), I usually record me giving the speech and listen to it on my mp3 player in my downtime.

 

I memorize by ear. Like, usually I have songs memorized within a few listens.

One tip, break it into chunks and memorize the chunks. Work on one chunk at a time. The reason to do this is if you memorize it all together, you'll end up saying it all at once, and get REALLY good at the first part of it, because your constantly saying that, but be less good at stuff later on.

If it's individual facts I'm trying to remember I do what Elknight does and link what I'm trying to remember with other words that make sense to me. If it's an entire passage I need to memorize, I break it down a bit and just read it over and over. Got surprisingly good at doing that as we had to memorize pages of french essays to copy out in class back in the day.

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If you're speaking it, say it out loud. Read it once in your head, read it out loud once, then keep reading it (in your head or out loud) until you've got it down. Maybe that doesn't make sense. I've always been able to memorize a poem with meter on the first or second time through.

Flashcards and repetition.

Say it out load, sentence by sentence. Don't advance until you already know the previous sentences and you can say them naturally, without having to think.

 

Also, saying it while walking arround in a place with mirrors seems to help me memorize stuff.

I just repeat it over and over in my head. Eventually it just sounds right, and I can remember a sequence.

I just repeat segments until I can do them flawlessly, then I put them together. It works for music, poems, and Spanish for me.

I skim the worst and the most biased way I possibly can on a topic or question and purposefully fail and then learn the answer.

 

I then redo the question which triggers a Epinephrine Rush upon seeing the question since I know the answer now specifically since it's designed for this exact question which makes it have meaning which triggers a Euphoria feeling which is easy to remember.

I either do one of the three if I really need to memorize it:

 

• Make flashcards on www.quizlet.com
• Read it out loud over and over again
• Make it into a song
• Make an odd/quirky mnemonic

I have this other thing that I do that used to help me. I don't really know how to explain it so I'll just give an example and explain that.

 

Let's say I had to memorize "The fox jumped over the lazy dog." I would read it outloud like this:

 

The

The fox

The fox jumped

The fox jumped over

The fox jumped over the

The fox jumped over the lazy

The fox jumped over the lazy dog

 

I do that with poetry, except I do it line by line instead of word by word.

Say it 16 times. Memorized!

 

It's also how I memorize pi, which is 3.14159265358979323846264338279502....

I don't try to do anything special when revising. I just repeat, repeat, repeat. If you have 2 weeks to prepare, go through it once or twice everyday, gradually removing yourself from the paper. It shouldn't be too difficult and will gradually stick.

I've always done one line at a time, and look away then repeat it, like Elk said. Works for me.

My brother memorised Pi to the 72nd digit in math class today. His teacher challenged him to do it within 2 weeks, and promised him a chocolate eclair if he could...so he did it right away. <_<

When I was memorizing prayers in Aramaic [because that's how my religion rolls] I was being lazy and not actually learning Aramaic so I memorized the individual prayers instead like a parrot, which is like a poem. All I did to memorize them was I'd write the whole thing down, then I'd keep saying the first line and after I memorized the first line I would keep saying the first line plus the second line and so on forth adding a line every-time and repeating the whole thing that way I wouldn't forget the previous lines. I found it helps to write it as well while you say it.

I just keep reading it or go line by line.

I would read it a few dozen times, say it out-loud, have a friend read it to me, etc, and then write it down a bunch of times. Then I'll test myself by writing it or saying it and checking it line by line until I feel confident that I've got it.

Personally I'd just find a way to cheat since there's no value to be gained from memorizing poetry. [cabbage], I don't even have my own poetry memorized.

 

But if you want to do it the legit way, repeat the first line a few times, then the first and second a few more, then first, second, and third, and so on and so forth. That way you have a solid foundation and one line will sort of remind you of what the next is.

I just read it and hope I don't forget it, probaly why I fail things tbh...