How do you memorize?

[Slottr]

I  have a history exam in the next coming week here, and on this exam I have to memorize 30+ dates from pre world war 2 and world war 2. My question is, how do you memorize a whole whackton of information? Whether you're in school, out of school or what ever your situation is.

[TopDollar]

In order to maintain certain qualifications at my job, we have to take little exams time to time that mostly consist of regurgitation of information word for word from a study guide. Mostly, I just repeat required information out loud to myself until I get it right. Then sleep on it and do the same thing again the next day just to check myself. Kind of like mental flash cards I guess.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

It;s funny because I'm studying Psychology and I'm not even good at memorization myself. But I can tell you, one of the most successful methods is a continuous pattern of studying, testing yourself, and taking breaks. When you test yourself, you can figure out which pieces of information you need to focus your attention to more and which you don't. This type of work is mostly pioneered by Hermann Ebbinghaus.

[Mo_z_Art]

as I am currently studying for my Matura (A-Levels in Austria) I think I can help you

When I had to remember 24 pages of music history 2 weeks ago I started 4 days in advance, which worked out fine, but may be wayyyy to little time for you and be sure that I already forgot everything I studyied. So if you want to remember it for a long time you need to devide what you have to study into small bits for each day.  I studied 6 pages a day (I have already studied everything at least once before for an exam). What I did was read a paragraph and then try to remember it and say out loud while walking through my room without reading my notes. Repeat and repeat and repeat that until you know what the page is about. Then go ahead to the next page; If you are able to remember the second page too, try to remember the first one again and always say the content out loud! 

You can also try to link information you already know together or in totally absurd ways, for example dates: lets say you need to remember 1945 then one may think: oh my brother is 19 and my mother 45, thats when the second world war ended (strange example I know).  Or if there are many bullet points you need to remember then it always helps me to remember how many there are so that I know if I forgot one; Or I build a word out of the beginning letters of all the bullet points

But as someone already wrote repetition is the most important thing when it comes to studying, so make yourself a timetable and stick to it  (I have to be honest that didn't work for me for my A-Levels as I got far too lazy over the past two years when it comes to studying, but I still managed to only get 1s (As) so far)

[middleclasspoor]

In school,  I would write down every word of what I was trying to memorize over and over. This got my "muscle memory" working in conjunction with my mind's memory and helped reinforce the recall of what I was trying to learn at the time. It was a lot of work but it did work wonderfully.

 

Good luck...