Saturday, February 6, 2016

Memorization vs Cramming

According of an interview that I made to my roommate’s girlfriend, who has taken a psychology course last semester, and some researches that I did in internet. Nowadays more students prefer to memorize large amounts of information in a short time, which is well-known as cramming. Most of them said that it can help you in the moment with a test. However many professors are worried about this, because they say that it results in short term retention of what students have studied. In fact, Harold Edward Gorst in his book The curse of education said: “as long as education is synonymous with cramming on an organized plan, it will continue to produce mediocrity”.                   
                              
  

A young boy does some last minute cramming while walking to school with his sister

On the other hand, memorization which is the way to use one or more mental process techniques in the way to learn something. According to The dictionary Merriam-Webster, memorization is to learn something so well that you are able to remember it perfectly. To memorize something you can apply one or more memorization techniques. The most common techniques are: Rote learning, a mnemonic, a mnemonic link system, a peg system, the major system, the method of loci, the art of memory. When you apply all of this techniques, those help you not just in the way you prepare for an exam, also in the way you understand and learn. However, memorization takes you more time studying than cramming.




So what will we do now that we know this?? 

2 comments:

  1. Research shows that the best way to remember something is to summarize it to yourself, self-testing, and teaching it to someone else. Good ideas to remember for learning English!

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  2. That is true. Especially I like to teaching it. when I teach about one topic, I am learn it more. I had that good experience.

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