How I Was Able to Ace Exams Without Studying

In high school, I rarely studied. Despite that, I graduated second in my class. In university, I generally studied less than an hour or two before major exams. However, over four years, my GPA always sat between an A and an A+.
Recently I had to write a law exam worth 100% of my final grade. Unfortunately, I was out of the country and didn’t get back by plane until late Sunday night. I had to write the test at 9 am Monday morning. I got an A after just one hour of review on the plane.
Right now, I’m guessing most of you think I’m just an arrogant jerk. And, if the story ended there, you would probably be right.
Why do Some People Learn Quickly?
The fact is most of my feats are relatively mundane. I’ve had a chance to meet polyglots who speak 8 languages, people who have mastered triple course loads and students who went from C or B averages to straight A+ grades while studying less than before.
The story isn’t about how great I am (I’m certainly not) or even about the fantastic accomplishments of other learners. The story is about an insight: that smart people don’t just learn better, they also learn differently.
It’s this different strategy, not just blind luck and arrogance, that separates rapid learners from those who struggle.
Most sources say that the difference in IQ scores across a group is roughly half genes and half environment. I definitely won’t discount that. Some people got a larger sip of the genetic cocktail. Some people’s parents read their kids Chaucer and tutored them in quantum mechanics.
However, despite those gifts, if rapid learners had a different strategy for learning than ordinary students, wouldn’t you want to know what it was?

The Strategy that Separates Rapid Learners
The best way to understand the strategy of rapid learners is to look at its opposite, the approach most people take: rote memorization.
Rote memorization is based on the theory that if you look at information enough times it will magically be stored inside your head.
This wouldn’t be a terrible theory if your brain were like a computer. Computers just need one attempt to store information perfectly. However, in practice rote memorization means reading information over and over again. If you had to save a file 10 times in a computer to ensure it was stored, you’d probably throw it in the garbage.
The strategy of rapid learners is different. Instead of memorizing by rote, rapid learners store information by linking ideas together. Instead of repetition, they find connections. These connections create a web of knowledge that can succeed even when you forget one part.
When you think about it, the idea that successful learners create a web has intuitive appeal. The brain isn’t a computer hard drive, with millions of bits and bytes in a linear sequence. It is an interwoven network of trillions of neurons.
Why not adopt the strategy that makes sense with the way your brain actually works?
Not a New Idea, But an Incredibly Underused Idea
This isn’t a new idea, and I certainly didn’t invent it.
Polymath, cognitive scientist and AI researcher Marvin Minsky once said:

“If you understand something in only one way, then you don’t really understand it at all. The secret of what anything means to us depends on how we’ve connected it to all other things we know. Well-connected representations let you turn ideas around in your mind, to envision things from many perspectives until you find one that works for you. And that’s what we mean by thinking!” [emphasis mine]

Benny Lewis, polyglot and speaker of 8 languages, recently took up the task of learning Thai in two months. One of his first jobs was to memorize a phonetic script (Thai has a different alphabet than English). How did he do it?

“I saw [a Thai symbol] and needed to associate it with ‘t’, I thought of a number of common words starting with t. None of the first few looked anything like it, but then I got to toe! The symbol looks pretty much like your big toe, with the circle representing the nail of the second toe (if looking at your left foot). It’s very easy to remember and very hard to forget! Now I think of t instantly when I see that symbol.
It took time, but I’ve come up with such an association for all [75] symbols. Some are funny, or nerdy, or related to sex, or something childish. Some require a ridiculous stretch of the imagination to make it work. Whatever did the job best to help me remember.”

The famous British savant Daniel Tammet has the ability to multiply 5 digit numbers in his head. He explains that he can do this because each number, to him, has a color and texture, he doesn’t just do the straight calculation, he feels it.
All of these people believe in the power of connecting ideas. Connecting ideas together, as Minsky describes. Linking ideas with familiar pictures, like Lewis. Or even blending familiar shapes and sensations with the abstract to make it more tangible as Tammet can do.
How Can You Become a Rapid Learner?
So all this sounds great, but how do you actually do it?
I’m not going to suggest you can become a Tammet, Lewis or Minsky overnight. They have spent years working on their method. And no doubt, some of their success is owed to their genetic or environmental quirks early in life.
However, after writing about these ideas for a couple years I have seen people make drastic improvements in their learning method. It takes practice, but students have contacted me letting me know they are now getting better grades with less stress, one person even credited the method for allowing him to get an exam exemption for a major test.
Some Techniques for Learning by Connections
Here are the some of the most popular tactics I’ve experimented with and suggested to other students:
1. Metaphors and Analogy
Create your own metaphors for different ideas. Differential calculus doesn’t need to just be an equation, but the odometer and speedometer on a car. Functions in computer programming can be like pencil sharpeners. The balance sheet for a corporation can be like the circulatory system.
Shakespeare used metaphor prolifically to create vivid imagery for his audience. Your professor might not be the bard, but you can step in and try them yourself.
2. Visceralization
Visceralization is a portmanteau between visceral and visualization. The goal here is to envision an abstract idea as something more tangible. Not just by imagining a picture, but by integrating sounds, textures and feelings (like Tammet does).
When learning how to find the determinant of a matrix, I visualized my hands scooping through one axis of the matrix and dropping through the other, to represent the addition and subtraction of the elements.
Realize you already do this, just maybe not to the same degree. Whenever you see a graph or pie chart for an idea, you are taking something abstract and making it more tangible. Just be creative in pushing that a step further.
3. The 5-Year Old Method
Imagine you had to explain your toughest subject to a 5-year old. Now practice that.
It may be impossible to explain thermodynamics to a first grader, but the process of explanation forces you to link ideas. How would you explain the broader concepts in simpler terms a child would understand?
4. Diagramming
Mind-mapping is becoming increasingly popular as a way of retaining information. That’s the process of starting with a central idea and brainstorming adjacent connections. But mindmapping is just the skin of the onion.
Creating diagrams or pictures can allow you to connect ideas together on paper. Instead of having linear notes, organized in a hierarchy, what if you had notes that showed the relationships between all the ideas you were learning?
5. Storytelling to Remember Numbers and Facts
Pegging is a method people have been using for years to memorize large amounts of numbers or facts. What makes it unique isn’t just that it allows people to perform amazing mental feats (although it can), but the way it allows people to remember information–by connecting the numbers to a story.
Pegging is a bit outside the scope of this article, but the basic idea is that each digit is represented by the sound of a consonant (for example: 0=c, 3=t, 4=d…). This allows you to convert any number into a string of consonants (4304 = d-t-c-d).
The system allows you to add any number of vowels in between the consonants to make nouns (d-t-c-d = dot code). You can then turn this list of nouns into a story (The dot was a code that the snake used…). Then all you need to do is remember the order of the story to get the nouns, consonants and back to the numbers.
The Way We Were Taught to Learn is Broken
Children are imaginative, creative and, in many ways, the epitome of this rapid learning strategy. Maybe it’s the current school system, or maybe it’s just a consequence of growing up, but most people eventually suppress this instinct.
The sad truth is that the formal style of learning, makes learning less enjoyable. Chemistry, mathematics, computer science or classic literature should spawn new ideas, connections in the mind, exciting possibilities. Not only the right answers for a standardized test.
The irony is that maybe if that childlike, informal way of learning came back, even just in part, perhaps more people would succeed on those very tests. Or at least enjoyed the process of learning.

Scott Young is a university student, author and head of an online service designed to teach you rapid learning tactics. The program is currently sold out, but you can sign up here to get announcements when it reopens.

 by Scott Young of ScottYoung.com.

PSLE Revision Tips

The best PSLE notes are the notes that your child creates his/herself. The process that your child goes through to come up with the notes help more than you think. This is why it is important for them to spend some serious time sitting down and compiling what they have learnt into proper notes. It forces them to review everything they have; learnt, organizes what they have learnt in a particular structure which helps them to remember it better and it forces your child to create linkages between different topics and chapters so they can create a logical flow to the notes.

 Here are some other tips, which you can apply to further help your child’s revision process for a day before a PSLE exam. They can make quick mind maps without looking at their notes, which will help them to think through what they have learnt. They can help themselves remember a list of things by linking each item to a location that they are familiar with or they can even create a story out of whatever they have to remember. For example, photosynthesis, mammals, warm blooded animals, lion, rabbits, cold-blooded animals, reptiles, snakes, and lizards. They can make a story out of this list of words. It doesn’t even have to make sense sometimes. Photosynthesis helps a mammal take photos of warm-blooded animals such as lions and rabbits but cold-blooded reptilian animals like snakes and lizards do not like to pose for pictures. It doesn’t make sense.

But it sure helps one to remember the key words required in a science paper. Some other tips would be to help your child find a deep and compelling reason to learn a subject and pass an exam. This reason would motivate your child to succeed without being pushed by an external force. Before any revision, get your child to do some warm up exercises to get some healthy oxygen flowing to the brain. You can also get you child to have 15-minute power nap to improve their concentration for the next round of revision. Lastly remind your child to read each question on the exam paper carefully. Most children tend to miss out the instructions and lose marks when they actually could have answered it well if they had read the question properly.

By Nadira Begum | October 7, 2010 The Asian Parent

Tips for PSLE Science Preparation

Here are some tips for preparing for your PSLE Science exam. It just takes heck of a lot of self discipline on the part of the child and a little boldness from them to ask the school teacher for some clarification occassionally.

1. Buy a good Science Guide. Your child should read it back to front. One reading may not be enough. I would say read it at least two times if possible. Unfortunately, most of our kids read Science guide books a total of….. drumroll…..ZERO times.Knowledge and foundation are important. My two favourites publicly available guide books are Ultimate Science Guide and the old orange book called Science PSLE Revision Guide. There are other good ones out there, and most tuition centres will produce quite a good set of notes. The problem is your child probably hasn’t really read them. Honestly its dry material. Intrinsic motivation to read it is seriously hard to find for a child. Nevertheless, if they want the grades, it must be done. Oh! Notice I said back to front. Read it from the back. Kids love to read from chapter one because they are usually the easier topics. Get them to start from the most difficult topics, so that they use the best of their concentration on the harder topics, before procrastination, boredom and the diminishing enthusiasm sets in.

2. When reading the guide book, make sure they have a notebook beside them. Notetaking is a very important skill. Unfortunately, with computers, powerpoints, printers and photocopiers, we have done our children a great disservice. Note taking is now a dying art and few students these days know how to take notes effectively. If you don’t understand a concept, don’t just memorise it. Try to do a simple experiment to convince your own mind. To ensure learning has occured, try to explain the concept to someone else. i.e. after reading your guide book, you must teach someone else.

3. Buy yourself a stack of past year 10 school exam papers as well as PSLE questions (5 yr series). Some books like Teacher Circles helps you to get a rough idea of what teachers are looking for. For basics you can look at Renee Chong’s books. For the more challenging, ofcourse go look for the Prelim Papers from Nanyang.

4. If you are seriously gunning for an A*. Train yourself to get 60/60 for your multiple choice. With each question worth two marks, careless mistakes are simply not acceptable here. If you are an average student hoping to improve, you’ll probably find that strengthening section A would be your best bet too. With minimal guidance from tutors, you should be able to help your child practice and correct section A quite easily. Students may need some explanation for Section A questions, but it should be relatively few compared to B.

 A reasonably hardworking child should only have at most 2 to 6 questions that really need explaining. Usually there are more careless mistakes than mistakes due to lack of understanding. Something is wrong if they plonk 20 questions at you and say I don’t understand them all. It just means they haven’t bothered taking step 1 and 2 seriously…taking notes using the Guide Book. 5. Section B is tricky. The questions are getting more interesting and less straightforward. This is where you must really know your keywords. Sorry, this is that part that takes months of work to fine tune and crystallise. Read model answers and search for words and phrases that are always repeated for that topic. Key words are the key! Try to get a set of reliable Section B answers e.g. the PSLE questions for the past 5 years. Some assessment books should be OK. Top 10 school exam papers are 80% OK, but sometimes lack depth. Some answers are also total rubbish, but usually these are no more than one or two in each paper.

This is where you could use some advice from your schoolteachers if you don’t have a tutor. The answer should be short and sharp. Clear and contain all the key words and concepts in the right context. I emphasise in the right context. Remember, its a science exam, so 99% of the answers should be testing science keywords and concepts. Be very specific. Do not add frills and go out of point. It will cost you. 6.

The key to PSLE Science Preparation is determination, hardwork and initiative. If you are sending your kid to tuition two or three times a week and he or she is doing nothing much other than quickly answering hundreds of questions and doing lots of assignments at home, you can be assured that unless the child is someone who can listen once and remember for a lifetime, you’re wasting your money. Your kids are just “firefighting”. Review is key. How much time do they spend reviewing what is learnt? How much of the corrections can they actually remember?

 If you really were to test the average child, I can assure you, the answer would be less than 42% as shown by research. Kids who listen and not review remember very little. Save your money, have less tuition, sit with your child and review the work with them. At this age, not many children can really do it on their own. I know of two children who went to a top secondary schools. Self motivated, yet they had wonderfully patient grandmothers who sat down with their grandchildren and reviewed all the work with them daily. How do parents and grandparents differ from paid tutors? Paid tutors have fixed hours. They come and go according to their schedule, not the child’s schedule. The child can be exhausted, but a paid tutor is there and the child’s absorption rate is minimal.

Usually, children do not have a long concentration span. Parents, grandparents and siblings can break revision up into half hour or hour long slots. Tutors cannot be coming to your home to teach for two hours while your child has a toilet break every half an hour! But! you say! My child is different. She can go to math tuition for 3 hours, or Chinese for 4 hours in a stretch. Yes, have you ever in your life sat through 4 hours of meetings non-stop? You are an adult, your child is a child. Rarely can a person absorb at 100% efficiency after sitting for 4 hours straight. Stop kidding yourselves.

In class, they can take notes, so even if their heads are not absorbing, they can go home and review the information. Note: GO HOME and review the information themselves…maybe it would take another 6 hours of home time!!! Can it be done without adult supervision? Yes. There are many self motivated chidlren out there, who due to experience and life circumstances or just the way they are wired have very high intrinsic motivation. But at primary school age, they are not the majority. Most kids have simply not reached that level of mental maturity yet. We often kid ourselves into thinking that we have paid the school fees, the tutors. We have found the best tutors for our children. But if children do not review the information learnt at home, then you have been short changed my friend!

Minimising Careless Mistakes in PSLE Science

Here are some suggestions as to how to help a child minimise careless mistakes in PSLE Science exams. Sufficient sleep = Mental alertless. Lower anxiety, don’t panic. Don’t rush. Stay calm. Unlike in math exams, usually students are not so hardpressed for time in science exams. READ Every word in the question. Many students have the habit of seeing the diagram and not reading the stem of the question.

Basically, if you don’t know the problem, how are you going to solve it? Teach the child to use a ruler to place under each line of words. Read every word in every line. Students must HIGHLIGHT (underlining or using colouring pencil is a far cheaper option) usually one or two key points in the question. Often, kids simply cannot tell what is important. Given a highlighter, they highlight almost everything.

If this is the case, confiscate the highlighter. Its a waste of money. Examples of what to highlight include: Aim Differences in the diagram (e.g. in a control and experimental setup) The variables changed or kept constant in an experiment Negatives like “False” or “Not” Words like “other than”, “based only on the diagram above” Sweeping statements are usually wrong. Highlight warning words like “all” “never” “always” “none”. e.g. “All plant cells have chloroplast”. “All mammals give birth”. Both of which are false statements. Units

Other keywords In electricity questions, the pathway of the electric current. In web of life questions, use different colours for different food chains to count. In forces, note “Extension of spring” or “Length of spring” “dark” in photosynthesis questions Do lots of writing for MCQ on the Question paper. Tick and cross options. Writing T or F. Thought processes should be recorded quickly in pencil (e.g. key concepts, keywords, equations, diagrams).

Descriptions should be sketched into a diagram. It does not have to be neat. (Sometimes just writing a respiration or photosynthesis equation or drawing a quick sketch of the circulatory system or water cycle can help clarify the child’s mind, but they are over-confident that they know it so well or they think its too much effort to draw it out. With practice, these bits of information only take less than 10 seconds to sketch out and could in reality save them quite a few marks.)

There’s no glory in doing things mentally. I hate it when people tell me they did things in their heads. That’s not smart. Not for Science exams anyway. Doing things only in your head opens up the floodgate of careless mistakes. I tell my students that if they didn’t write it down, it means they haven’t bothered to analyse the question properly. It may seem time consuming at first but it gets faster with practice. Not everything is important to pen down. With practice they get the idea of which type of questions need “working”. This often this helps reduce errors.

 If possible, know the answer and write it down (in short point form) BEFORE looking at the options. Why before? Because options are often (though not always) written in a way to trick the students. If you don’t know the answer, then eliminate options. If you still don’t know, circle the question, take a stab in the dark and shade a guess first and come back to it later when the paper is completed. (If you really don’t know, and cannot even form a hypothesis (educated guess) don’t keep changing answers, your first gutfeel is probably your best bet.) Shade the optical answer sheet as you do the paper. Not after finishing. In Section B (Short Answer), it is VERY important to reread all the answers if time permits. Especially, those 2 to 4 mark paragraph type answers.

Often in their haste, students can slip up and even write “gain heat” instead of “lose heat” “conductor” instead of “insulator” due to carelessness. When asked the same question outside of an exam situation, they show full understanding. Its just mental fatique in the exam that causes slip ups. Giving the mind a break and then re-reading answers will hopefully alert a student to such slip ups. (Even as adults, we have to write and rewrite drafts, all the more children, though time may not permit.) If there is time for checking, check! If you first did the MCQ question by choosing the correct option, try redoing the question by eliminating options. Try to solve questions in a different way. Work backwards.

If necessary, integrate knowledge from different topics. This sytem of double checks is important. A* in Math and Very careless in Science? There are some students who can score up 98% and above regularly in math but tend to make alot of careless mistakes in Science. How can this be? Some children are used to working well with speed and numeral accuracy. However, in Science, some questions alone can be long (Question, not answer space). Much detailed analysis of the paragraphs and diagrams has to be done. Every word must be read. For example, in a photosynthesis and respiration question below, if the child reads too fast and misses out the word “dark” which is only mentioned once, then there is no way they can get the answer right for that question.