I’m studying with my 7th grader earlier tonight. We’re learning about Ancient Rome, the period from 500 BC to about 30 BC. He’s got to learn all of these names and dates, and you can just imagine how I would teach him.
No lists. No mnemonics.
Relate the data points to each other. Learn the stories so that it’s all interconnected. Mnemonics help you learn lists. Learning lists is dumb. Why would you want to be better at learning lists?
Mnemonics don’t lead to mastery; they lead to a false sense of learning. Maybe good for tomorrow’s exam, but not good for life-long work.
Humans don’t work or think in lists. We learn and think in stories, in connections.
So, we’re going through the dates. Rome was founded my Romulus in about 500 BC. Julius Cesar was born in 100 BC and was murdered in 44 BC. Rome fell in about 34 BC.
Well once you know that Cesar was the last dictator of Rome and that you know about when he lived, you link the fall of the Roman empire to shortly after Cesar’s death. You might not remember the exact dates, but you know the two are pretty close. Should be enough for a multiple-choice test and is certainly enough for having a conversation about Ancient Rome. And on and on and on. There were probably 20 different dates of wars and people’s lives that he needs to know for his exam. We went through and told the stories.
If the Punic wars started in 246 BC and ended in 146 BC, then we know that all three wars happened within that time span. We don’t have to remember each as individual topics.
The battle of Zama ended the second Punic war and conveniently happened in 202 BC. Now we’re linking.
The first Punic war began in 246 BC. The second Punic war ended with the battle of Zama in 202 BC, and the third Punic War ended in 146 BC. Ok now we have a timeline we can work with and tell our stories around, so that when we drop in leaders and generals it’s easier. If we know a general was involved in the third Punic war, we know he has to be in the story after 202 BC and before 146 BC.
It seems small and maybe it’s easier to just straight memorize, but with this method you can keep adding and adding forever. The painting becomes more rich AND clearer. Memorizing a list gets too hard.
Now I go one step further. To make things nice and easy, we could say that the first Punic war began around 250 BC. The second Punic war ended with the battle of Zama in about 200 BC, and the third Punic War ended in about 150 BC.
You see by rounding the numbers I make the connections super easy to see. Do I lose a little data , yes? I’m comfortable saying that, yes. It’s a multiple-choice test. If my son says the battle of Zama happened in 201 BC instead of 202 BC, I won’t be too worried about him.
I have a loads of opinions on lots of topics, but one that will help you the most in the near term are my opinions on studying. In the January issue of Physician Assistant Exam Scholars, I go really deep on building skills and spend a huge chunk of time on studying. I’m pretty sure that this one issue can boost you’re scores by 10-20%. If…If you apply what you read in those pages.
Get on board now because this issue will only be available until … oh wait it will be over when the ball drops.
Physician Assistant Exam Scholars
Brian Wallace
P.S.
One of the terms he had to learn was cultural diffusion. Talking about how Greek culture moved through the Italian peninsula. I, being the biology major and previous high school biology teacher, was set to launch into a long winded dissertation on diffusion using “tea particles” as my imagery.
I asked, “Hey buddy. Do you know what diffusion is?”
He replied, “Yeah. Diffusion means to stop.”
“What?”
“To stop…. You defuse a bomb. You stop it.”
I just about peed myself I laughed so hard.