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Using Memory Techniques Sensibly
Memory techniques should be regarded as an aid not a crutch. They will enable you to absorb and retain information, but will not help you understand it.
Learning Effectively.
Simply absorbing material teaches you little or nothing. You need to engage with the knowledge to bring about an interaction between what you already know and what you are learning.
There is no point in cluttering your head with knowledge if you don't understand what it means. This is what happens as a result of parrot-fashion learning, or cramming.
You Won't Be Able Use It Effectively
You may go into the exam room with lots of facts, but when you come to try to apply them to the questions, you won't know how. To take in knowledge usefully, you have to get to grips with it and understand it.
Schemata Building Mental Processing
The eminent psychologist, Piaget, has provided us with an understanding of how learning takes place in the mind. Each experience we take in through our senses we compare with stored experience already in our heads. The latter we call schemata (the plural of schema). These stored experiences exist as patterns of neural connections.
When we encounter new material through our senses we do two things with it. Firstly, we modify the patterns which are already in our heads, to some degree, to help accommodate the new material. Secondly, we change what we are experiencing, ie seeing or hearing, to some degree, to complete the fit.
By deliberately attending to the association process as, indeed, we

 
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