Sounds familiar? When something 'slipped your mind', you are not alone. Lost your memory? Not at all. Memory is made to forget, not to remember. In fact, we know less what makes us forget than what causes us to remember.
Stress and fatigue play a role, so does a lack of interest. "But, I am interested in this subject, that's why I signed up for it." "Lack of interest" and causes you to not remember. Frustrating.
Faced with a constant barrage of facts, figures, images, impressions and the like, our memory is constantly rejecting, sorting, ordering and generalizing in ways we don't know much about. What is left over after this process is finally "saved." What we do know is that memory is, first and foremost, a faculty for forgetting. And, while we may complain about it, it's actually a good thing. One has to forget in order to remember.
Reading a textbook is not the same as reading the newspaper or a novel and still, most students do it just that way. No wonder they get too little out of their time and efforts spent. No wonder the learning process may quickly become boring even with a student's best first intentions.
Look at the title above. Titles have significance and the first thing a good student must do is carefully look at the book title, chapter headings and all the subheadings in a chapter. This is called making a survey, an overview of what to expect.
Textbook authors go to great pains to select appropriate titles for their books and chapters. Also to make the information flow in the most logical and natural way. Still, most students give it no thought whatsoever. Don't skimp on this survey!
Read all the headings and subheadings in the book. Try to absorb.
Read the Preface. It often contains hints on why the book was written, what the author thinks is important for you to know and how the information is organized to get you from point A to point B.
Read the Table of Contents. Reading this imparts what is required to pass the final test for this course. Look at the Table in some detail. Every line in here is important.
Browse through the Index in the back. Again, look at words you do not know and make a mental note of them. It would not hurt to write down at least a few of them, those that stand out as exciting.
No, it is not time yet to read the first chapter. First you have to become properly motivated. Huh? Yes, I know you want to learn as much as possible. But-- what? What, exactly, is it that you are looking for, you and your teacher? To find out, one has to be motivated to find the answers.
Luckily it is a textbook you are supposed to read, not a novel. Unlike novels, modern textbooks give sample questions at the end of each chapter or near the end of the book. Look them up now. Those are sample questions you are required to answer correctly as affirmation of your learning progress. Of course you do not know the answers to them, mostly, but that is not the purpose. Make a mental note of the questions or write some down
Teachers are clever people. They usually write from outlines which were carefully crafted and edited beforehand. Remember, a textbook is not a novel where the plot or character develops as the author sees fit at the time of the writing. You can make the outline process work for you.
Carefully read the first and last paragraphs in a chapter or sub-chapter. They contain most of the information in a somewhat condensed form. Carefully read the first and last sentences in each paragraph. Every good speaker first tells the audience what will be covered in the speech, then the speech follows with further explanations given, sidelines added, etc. Thereafter the speech content is summarized. A good textbook writer at least attempts to follow these same rules as well.
Now read your entire assignment carefully. Look up words you do not know in the dictionary. Write them down, read them aloud several times for retention. When you come across an important concept also write it down, then read those lines aloud several times. Ask yourself: What does this mean? Why is this important? To who? When? Under what circumstances?
Recalling a fact, is what studying is about. Remember, though, that knowing something also means being able to predict a previously unknown outcome from a collection of other, sometimes non related facts. But for our purpose, remembering and recalling the subject matter and concepts in the textbook will tell your teacher how much you have learned in class.
As much as you may dislike it, recall is best accomplished by REPETITION. Sorry about that. Drumming a fact into your head repeatedly is still the best and fastest way to remember something. As far as we know, remembering is a process in the brain which sprouts dendrites like branches on a tree to grow connections between synapses. To physically grow a connection takes time and is facilitated by repetition.
Go through every topic by itself until you are in the 90%-plus score range. Do that 5 to 10 times. For every score below 90% go through it two additional times. You should hit over 90% at least seven times in-a-row. Then go to the next topic and repeat.
After you went through all topics with the good scores hit many times consecutively, go to the FINAL test. Go through it as often as is necessary to hit at least seven (7) 90%-plus scores successively. Keep this up until two (2) days before the test.
Never test yourself the very day before the test. An accidental lower score may only confuse and upset you. It would be counter-productive. Take a rest, you know you are good, you have all the topics down pat. Relax and be confident in having done all that was humanly possible.