Actualizing my Intellectual Potential

• I plan my memorization effortsI precisely determine the elements that I must memorize.

  Rarely Often
• I estimate the time required to memorize something well (selecting the material to retain; preparing a checklist; interiorization; rehearsing; revision).

  Rarely Often
• I set aside time for rehearsal and revision exercises in my agenda and on my list of tasks to do.

  Rarely Often
• I appropriately format material to memorizeFirst and foremost I make sure that I understood and assimilated the material.

  Rarely Often
• I can make clear links between the material and concrete reality.

  Rarely Often
• I use words and images when appropriate.

  Rarely Often
• I reduce texts to main ideas and key notions.

  Rarely Often
• I organize the material by sets and subsets and in hierarchical and logical groups.

  Rarely Often
• I condense the elements I must learn by heart onto personalized summary sheets and in the format of resumes, syntheses, tables, schemas, models, diagrams, or any other appropriate format depending on the case.

  Rarely Often
• I design summary sheets that are highly visual: one page per summary, clear layout, graphics, colors, easy reference.

  Rarely Often
• I use a system of study-material related codes, symbols and abbreviations to facilitate content perception and retention.

  Rarely Often
• I practice by re-writing these summary sheets while explaining them to myself.

  Rarely Often
• I make an effort to mentally visualize what I have learnedAfter a study session, I review and recite to myself the essential of what I have just learned (after a 10-minute break).

  Rarely Often
• In the days to come (after a day, week, month), I make repeated efforts to remember what I have learned.

  Rarely Often
• I regularly practice refresher and overall revision exercises.

  Rarely Often
• I formulate my own questions and find their responses in order to better memorize the knowledge.

  Rarely Often
• I review the material prior to and after a courseI only note the essential and, as much as possible, in my own words.

  Rarely Often
• I review previously covered material before each course (the day, night or hour before).

  Rarely Often
• I complete and organize my notes and review the course material as soon as possible after the course (the same night or following day).

  Rarely Often
• Each month, I set aside time in my agenda to look over the material covered and left to cover.

  Rarely Often
• I prepare for exams well in advanceRight at the start of a course, I obtain information about the nature of the exams: multiple choice questions, essay questions, problem-solving, case study, other.

  Rarely Often
• For each exam, I determine what I must know by heart.

  Rarely Often
• I develop memory tools that are appropriate to the exam format.

  Rarely Often
• Several times during the semester, I verify my understanding and memorization.

  Rarely Often
• I test myself and ask peers to test me.

  Rarely Often
• I turn exam preparation into quiz games that I play alone or with peers.

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• The night before an exam, I stop studying and revising and I relax.

  Rarely Often
• I avoid last minute cramming.

  Rarely Often
• When I write exams, I quickly read each question and note all that spontaneously comes to mind, to unload my memory, and then I take each question one by one in a more relaxed manner.

  Rarely Often

It's impossible to be competent at something if you have no memory, and there can be no learning without memorisation. All areas of study include concepts, theories and specific models that need to be understood and assimilated, sequences of operations and actions that need to be practiced until they become automatic. The ability to memorise data can be developed at any age, provided at least that you know the basics of how human memory works and develop appropriate strategies.