How to Remember Stuff on Test Day
Taking exams might be the worst part about being in high school. The worst feeling in an exam is knowing you know something but not being able to remember it. This has caused many students to lose crucial points on test and quizzes. This feeling is frustrating and annoying, yet it’s possible to hack your memory and remember what the information for the exam.
According to psychologists, the human brain is constantly working. The brain process roughly 11 million bits of information a second. The human brain cannot process all this information so the brain consciously remembers what it deems important, but the unconscious brain filters through a majority of the information. The brain picks up on plenty of Information, what you’re looking for is most likely in there. With, this understanding of memory, we know the information is somewhere in your brain so how can you retrieve it on test day. The key to remembering information is creating a similar mental state to when you learned the information. This allows for your brain to go into the storage of your long-term memory and retrieve information.
One of the best tools for creating this mental state is using a retrieval clue. A retrieval clue is a reminder to our brain to retrieve a memory. The brain already uses retrieval clues, for example if you wake up late you will most likely remember days you woke up late, on the contrary is you wake up early you are most likely to remember days you woke up early.
Students can use retrieval clues to their advantage on tests to remember key information. The most proven retrieval clues known to work are eating and music. Research has demonstrated if a student studies while eating certain foods and consumes said food during a test they will more likely remember the material they studied. For example, if a student is trying to memorize the unit circle and they eat apples while studying the unit circle; then consumes an apple before their math test, they will have a higher chance of remembering the unit circle. Gum can create the same effect by using a certain chewing gum flavor while studying. Likewise, music is a great tool for jugging memory. If before studying a student listens to a certain playlist and listens to this playlist on test day, they will be more likely to remember the material they studied. These two clues help create a mental condition on test day which is similar to the mental condition in which the material was learned and studied. This is the best way to hack memory to your advantage on test day.