[17].

Sice the evirometal cotext keeps chagig, the iformatio effectively becomes cotext-idepedet. I other words, you teach yourself how to retrieve the studied material i ay kid of circumstace, which is extremely useful give that fact that you ofte caot predict the exact circumstaces you will face durig the exam.

The cotext of study eed ot be oly evirometal. The particular questios ad practice tests you use also become the cotext that is ecoded with your study material. Therefore, the more questios you practice o for a give cocept, the more eural coectios the brai has to geerate betwee differet cotexts ad the target cocept. The more routes the brai has built, the easier it is to retrieve the cocept later. This is because retrieval becomes less depedet o the particular startig poit – the type of questio asked or its particular wordig.

The impact of this kid of cotext-sesitivity is particularly importat whe creatig flashcards. If the questio side of your flashcard cotais irrelevat iformatio, or iformatio that wo't be preset whe you really eed to remember, you may ot be able to recall it whe you eed it.

Cosider the followig flashcards:

Q: How do you say “agai” i Chiese, but oly for actios that [17].

Sice the evirometal cotext keeps chagig, the iformatio effectively becomes cotext-idepedet. I other words, you teach yourself how to retrieve the studied material i ay kid of circumstace, which is extremely useful give that fact that you ofte caot predict the exact circumstaces you will face durig the exam.

The cotext of study eed ot be oly evirometal. The particular questios ad practice tests you use also become the cotext that is ecoded with your study material. Therefore, the more questios you practice o for a give cocept, the more eural coectios the brai has to geerate betwee differet cotexts ad the target cocept. The more routes the brai has built, the easier it is to retrieve the cocept later. This is because retrieval becomes less depedet o the particular startig poit – the type of questio asked or its particular wordig.

The impact of this kid of cotext-sesitivity is particularly importat whe creatig flashcards. If the questio side of your flashcard cotais irrelevat iformatio, or iformatio that wo't be preset whe you really eed to remember, you may ot be able to recall it whe you eed it.

Cosider the followig flashcards:

Q: How do you say “agai” i Chiese, but oly for actios that you will repeat i the future? Like askig someoe to do repeat somethig they just said… A: 再

Compare that to:

Q: Agai (future) A: 再

The former has so much more cotext, that you may memorize the pairig oly with this cotext (which may be missig whe you eed to thik about the term).

For this reaso, it is better to either ask yourself questios with as little cotext as possible (ad thus maximum difficulty) or to ask may differet questios, with differet cotexts, so the same cotext is't required for successful retrieval.

I summary, we recommed the followig:

·For 1/2 of your study time, simulate the evirometal coditios of your test (a oisy/quiet eviromet, similar distractios, people aroud)

·For the other 1/2, alterate rooms, places ad coditios as you study

·Test yourself with differet kids of practice questios

–what-questiosyou will repeat i the future? Like askig someoe to do repeat somethig they just said… A: 再

Compare that to:

Q: Agai (future) A: 再

The former has so much more cotext, that you may memorize the pairig oly with this cotext (which may be missig whe you eed to thik about the term).

For this reaso, it is better to either ask yourself questios with as little cotext as possible (ad thus maximum difficulty) or to ask may differet questios, with differet cotexts, so the same cotext is't required for successful retrieval.

I summary, we recommed the followig:

·For 1/2 of your study time, simulate the evirometal coditios of your test (a oisy/quiet eviromet, similar distractios, people aroud)

·For the other 1/2, alterate rooms, places ad coditios as you study

·Test yourself with differet kids of practice questios

–what-questios–why-questios

–how-questios

·Make use of miimal cotext for flashcards, or if possible, try differet ways of askig yourself questios to maximize your flexibility.–why-questios

–how-questios

·Make use of miimal cotext for flashcards, or if possible, try differet ways of askig yourself questios to maximize your flexibility.Storage: Keepig

memories i the brai

Oce you've ecoded iformatio, you ow eed to store it. Ufortuately, forgettig is a major part of how our brais work. Most of us ca't remember what we had for dier Tuesday, three weeks ago. However, we ca all remember our first kiss.

Forgettig ca be caused by two differet processes. The first is a failure of storage—the iformatio might be forgotte because our brai loses it over time. The secod is a failure of retrieval—the iformatio might be “i” there, but we ca't access it. Experimetally, it's very difficult to tell these two apart, but sice they are separate processes, we'll cosider each separately as we look at how memory works.Storage: Keepig

memories i the brai

Oce you've ecoded iformatio, you ow eed to store it. Ufortuately, forgettig is a major part of how our brais work. Most of us ca't remember what we had for dier Tuesday, three weeks ago. However, we ca all remember our first kiss.

Forgettig ca be caused by two differet processes. The first is a failure of storage—the iformatio might be forgotte because our brai loses it over time. The secod is a failure of retrieval—the iformatio might be “i” there, but we ca't access it. Experimetally, it's very difficult to tell these two apart, but sice they are separate processes, we'll cosider each separately as we look at how memory works.The progressio of forgettig was origially studied by the famous experimetal psychologist Herma Ebbighaus. Ebbighaus discovered that forgettig follows a expoetial decay fuctio. Whereas i the first hours after study there is a rapid drop i the umber of items successfully remembered, there is relatively little forgettig from the 2d day owards.

Although the exact shape of the forgettig curve is likely idividual ad depeds o may factors related to the study material (e.g. how easy/difficult/iterestig the material is or how well it was ecoded), it approximates a expoetial curve, with rapid forgettig i the begiig ad less forgettig i later periods of time.The progressio of forgettig was origially studied by the famous experimetal psychologist Herma Ebbighaus. Ebbighaus discovered that forgettig follows a expoetial decay fuctio. Whereas i the first hours after study there is a rapid drop i the umber of items successfully remembered, there is relatively little forgettig from the 2d day owards.

Although the exact shape of the forgettig curve is likely idividual ad depeds o may factors related to the study material (e.g. how easy/difficult/iterestig the material is or how well it was ecoded), it approximates a expoetial curve, with rapid forgettig i the begiig ad less forgettig i later periods of time.