how to memorize an essay study tips

How to memorise essays and long responses

Lauren Condon

Marketing Specialist at Atomi

When it comes to memorising essays or long responses for your exams, there are three big things to consider.

Should you even try to memorise an essay?
Do you know how to adapt your memorised response to the exam question?
How on earth are you meant to memorise a 1,200 word essay??

It’s a lot to weigh up but we can help you out here. If you want an answer to the first question, here’s one we prepared earlier. But wait, there’s more! If you’re super keen to read more about question #2, then go ahead and click here .

And for that third point on how to actually memorise a long essay? Well, all you have to do is keep reading...

1. Break it down

Your essay/long response/creative writing piece could be anywhere between 800 and 1,200 words long. Yeah… that’s a lot. So when it comes to memorising the whole thing, it’s a lot easier to break the answer down into logical chunks and work on memorising it bit by bit.

So if you want to memorise your Discovery Essay, you might have something like this:

Introduction
Theme 1 with the assigned text
Theme 1 with the related text
Theme 2 with the assigned text
Theme 2 with the related text

You’re going to want to memorise the paragraphs and pay attention to the structure then you can piece it all together in the exam. Having a killer structure makes it a lot easier to remember the overall bones of this situation and if you’re finding this effective, you can even break those body paragraphs down further like topic sentence > example > explanation > connection to thesis.

2. Use memory tricks

Now, there are lots of different strategies and approaches when it comes to memorising a long piece of writing. Moving in sections, you can try reading it out loud over again (slowly looking at the paper less and less) or the classic look-cover-write-check approach. If you’re really struggling, make some of your own flashcards that have the first sentence on one side and the next sentence on the back so you can test your progress.

You could also enlist the help of some creative mnemonics (memory tricks) to remind you which sentence or section needs to come next. Pick one keyword from each sentence in the paragraph and turn them into a silly sentence to help you remember the structure of the paragraph and to make sure you don’t forget one of your awesome points.

3. Play to your strengths

Not all of us are super geniuses that can just read an essay and then memorise the entire thing but we’re all going to have our own strengths. There’s going to be something whether it’s art, music, writing, performance or sport that just ‘clicks’ in your brain and this is what you want to capitalise on. So for me, I was really into debating and public speaking (hold back the jokes please) and was used to giving speeches and remembering them. So whenever I wanted to memorise a long response, I would write out the essay onto palm cards and then practice it out loud like a speech. Did it annoy my family? Yes. Was I too embarrassed to tell people my strategy? Yes. Did it work? Absolutely. 💯

Whatever your strengths are, find a way to connect them to your essay and come up with a creative way of learning your long response that will be much easier and more effective for you!

4. Start early

So you know how there’s that whole long-term/short-term memory divide? Yeah well that’s going to be pretty relevant when it comes to memorising. You’re going to have a much better chance of remembering your long response if you start early and practice it often, instead of trying to cram it in the night before… sorry.

The good news is, you still have a couple of months before the HSC so try to get your prepared response written, get good feedback from your teachers and then make it perfect so it’s ready to go for the HSC. Then, the next step is to start memorising the essay now and test yourself on it fairly regularly all the way up to your exams. This way, you have plenty of time to really lock it deep into your memory.

5. Test yourself

The final and maybe even most important step is to test yourself. And not with flashcards or the look-cover-check-repeat anymore. Once you’ve got the essay memorised pretty well, you want to spend the weeks coming up to HSC doing past questions so you can practice

Having the essay memorised
Being able to recall it under pressure
Adapting it to any question so that all your hard work will actually pay off

For this to work, you really need to commit 100% to exam conditions (no cheating!) and it’s definitely worth sending those responses to your teacher to get them marked. That way, you will actually know if you’re doing a good job of remembering the core of your argument but also tailoring it perfectly to the question.

Any subject with essays or long responses can be super daunting so if you want to have a pre-written, adaptable response ready to go then it’s worth making sure you can actually memorise it for your exam. Remember to break down the essay into sections, play to your memory strengths and make sure you consistently test yourself all the way up to HSC. That should do the trick. 👌

Published on

July 28, 2017

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BEST Memorisation Techniques For Exams: The Secret Science Of How To Remember What You Study

by William Wadsworth | Last updated Aug 8, 2024 | First published on Feb 28, 2019 | 22 comments

Meet the expert

William Wadsworth

By William Wadsworth , the Cambridge University trained cognitive psychologist and specialist in how to study smarter, not harder. He leads the world’s largest research study on use of effective learning strategies, is regular exam prep expert for The Times , and hosts the Exam Study Expert podcast , with 1 million downloads to date.

Review and additional research by Dr Kerri Edinburgh .

Pretty recently – the last decade or so – scientists have reached broad agreement that there is one memorisation technique for exams and tests that, above all others, will solve the age-old question of how to remember what you study.

Before I tell you what the technique is, I was shocked to learn that as few as 7% of college-level students (and possibly even fewer students at high school) say they are using this technique as their main revision strategy.

So what’s the technique?

It’s called “ retrieval practice ”, and it’s based on the act of trying to pull information out of your memory.

It seems counter-intuitive at first that trying to remember something helps you to learn it, but you’ll be astonished at how powerful this strategy can be for getting information locked away in memory, ready for when you need it.

Read on to discover:

how retrieval practice works
why it’s so useful
and precisely how you should be using retrieval practice memorisation techniques to prepare for exams – including some common mistakes people often make when applying it.

What is “retrieval practice” and how can it help you to remember what you study?

When psychologists talk about “retrieving” something from memory, they mean recalling it, or remembering it. So “retrieval practice” just means practising remembering a piece of information you previously read, heard or saw.

A common misunderstanding – one I held myself for many years when studying for exams in high school – is that testing yourself on what you know only serves to “check” how much you know at that point, i.e. it won’t help you actually learn information.

We now know that’s not true.

A gigantic review of hundreds of studies testing how well various memorisation techniques prepared students for exams or tests concluded that, above all other techniques, retrieval practice (or “practice testing” as the review called it) was the most powerful.

The results from many of these studies were astonishing: students often improved by a whole grade (or more!) when learning using retrieval practice.

Part of the problem is that our own intuitions as students about what learning techniques are working for us are often flawed.

I highly recommend you take a look at a guest post I’ve written for my friends at Titanium Tutors, where I explain a fascinating experiment that beautifully demonstrates how our intuitions often lead to us making bad decisions about how to revise – and what we can do about it.

Benefits of using retrieval practice to learn for exams, and how it helps you to learn information

Retrieval practice works in a number of ways:

Helps you lock information into memory: the very act of pulling a piece of information out of your memory means you can remember it more easily later on.
Helps you find the gaps in your knowledge: by testing yourself, you’ll have a better idea of what you know and where you need to do more work.
Helps you apply information to new contexts: it’s not just about learning the facts, studying using retrieval practice makes it more likely that you will be able to figure out unfamiliar problems based on what you know, make leaps of intuition, and apply knowledge in new ways. These are all skills often demanded by the questions that unlock top marks in exams.

The first of these is probably the most important of these effects, but also the most surprising: it can seem strange at first that simply trying to remember something will strengthen your memory of that information, making it easier to remember it later.

But think of it like this: a big chunk of success in most exams comes down to simply being able to remember the information from your course. In other words, the exam tests your memory of what you learned.

Let me give you an analogy. If you’re training for the Olympics, you’ll train for your chosen sport first and foremost by practising that sport .

For example:

If you’re a long jumper, your most important training will be practising jumping.

But if you’re a weightlifter, your most important training will be practising lifting weights.

And if you’re a 100m runner, your most important training will be practising sprinting.

So given that, if you’re a student preparing for exams that are largely tests of memory, your most important training should be practising remembering information .

Sure, you’ll need to do other things too – the runner will need to spend time in the gym doing leg exercises, and the student will need to spend time (re-)reading unfamiliar material, or working on their exam technique, or how they structure their essays. But the focus for getting knowledge under your belt and into your memory should be retrieval practice.

I often say to my more sporty students that the moment in which you’re trying to remember a fact is the “rep” (a “rep” is a single component of an exercise that makes you stronger – a single press-up, a single bicep curl, or a single pull-up in a set).

Fascinatingly, whether you succeed in pulling the fact you’re searching for out of your memory or not, you’ll still have done some good !

How to memorise for exams with retrieval practice strategies

So how to apply all of this when studying?

Here are some of my favourite retrieval practice based memorisation techniques for exams and tests you can start using today:

Write what you know from memory on a blank sheet: a plain sheet of paper is a very under-rated study tool! Put your books away, then scribble down everything you can remember about a topic. After you’ve squeezed out as much as you can from memory, you might like to go back and add in any missing details in a different coloured pen. Next time you train yourself on this topic, aim to have fewer missing details – until you have none at all come the week before the exam!
Draw concept maps from memory: a slightly more sophisticated variant on the “blank sheet” method is drawing concept maps based on what you know of a topic. A concept map links ideas together visually, putting ideas in boxes, and linking them together with arrows to show how they relate. Unlike mind maps, they are quick to draw, placing more importance on getting the right information down on the page, with a sensible structure around it, rather than spending too long making the final result sumptuously beautiful (I know it’s fun… but you’re not going to be graded on your artwork at the end of the day! Unless you’re studying Art, of course…) Here’s an example of a concept map summarising what you might need to know about rates of reaction in chemistry:

Got stuck sequencing my GCSE rates lessons until I made a concept map inspired by @Mr_Raichura ’s #CogSciSci talk. It works! pic.twitter.com/a7oRW1IueW — Elizabeth Mountstevens (@DrMountstevens) August 18, 2018

Practice questions: Work through exercises from your text book or revision guide. Answer real exam questions. Or even make up your own quiz questions – I know some students who like to revise by first reading through their notes, making a list of their own “quiz questions” they know they will need to be able to answer to prove they know that topic properly. Then they put their notes away, and take the quiz.
Train with flash cards: start by making them, and then use them! Flash cards are my favourite way to learn large amounts of information quickly, and through long experience (both my own, and coaching students), there are some very specific steps you need to take to get the most out of studying with flash cards.

Psst… why not grab a free copy of my “science of learning cheat sheet”, which includes a deep-dive “DOs and DONTs” to get the most out of retrieval practice techniques like flash cards:

Free: Exam Success Cheat Sheet

My Top 6 Strategies To Study Smarter and Ace Your Exams

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Whichever of these techniques you’re using, keep your notes away until you’ve had a good try at remembering. Then you can check your notes (or the mark scheme, if you’re doing past exam questions) and give yourself feedback on where you went wrong.

This feedback step, understanding where you missed things or slipped up, is a very important part of the overall learning process, so don’t skimp on it.

If you find you can’t reliably remember a particular aspect of a topic, you’ll know to prioritise giving that issue some extra time until you have it nailed.

Don’t make these mistakes when using retrieval practice

Even the best memory techniques in the world won’t work properly if not applied correctly. Some traps to avoid when you’re using retrieval practice techniques in your studies:

1. Some difficulty is good, but if it’s too hard, make it easier…

If you can barely remember anything in a topic, no matter how hard you try, you probably need to back up a step.

Going back and re-reading your notes at this point is OK, and if you’re struggling to go from re-reading to remembering at least a good chunk of what you’ve just read, you need to break it up into smaller chunks.

Take what you’re trying to learn one segment at a time, get comfortable retrieving each segment on its own, then start to string them together.

Or for tricky memory jobs, try using intermediate prompts as “stepping stones” to jog your memory while also giving it space to do at least some retrieval practice.

Here are a few fun and creative ideas for how you could use “stepping stones” in practice, to build up gradually to remembering the whole thing from scratch. The video is about remembering English literature quotes (hard!), but some of the ideas here could easily be applied to other subjects, from recalling maths formulas to learning anatomical terms:

2. But if it’s too easy, you need to make it harder

On the other hand, if you break something up so small that it becomes trivial to remember, you’re not giving yourself enough of a memory workout and the benefits will be limited.

Say you’re trying to learn the formula for a chemical compound – you could learn it one atom at a time, and test yourself on each atom in the seconds after looking at it. With such small amounts of information and no delay before trying to remember it, you won’t even break a sweat as you recall each atom perfectly – but what you’ve learned won’t stick in memory for long.

So if it feels too easy, try going for larger chunks of knowledge, or leaving more of a gap between re-reading information and doing retrieval practice on it.

3. Don’t let yourself get away with not fully knowing something!

Let’s say you’re working with flashcards. You might feel like you almost knew it, flip the card, find something familiar, and say “ah yes, I did know that”.

But beware! You didn’t, did you?

Train with discipline: give yourself a good moment to rummage through your brain for the information, and if it’s not there, note it down as a missed effort and come back to it again.

Remember, even failing to remember something is useful memory training as long as you gave it a good try!

Though obviously your goal is to succeed in remembering things, so pay special attention to the things you couldn’t remember at the end of the session, and in your review at the end of the day.

4. Remembering something once doesn’t prove you’ll know it forever

Just because you know it today, doesn’t mean you’ll remember it tomorrow, or next week. Some scientists recommend aiming for at least 3 successful retrieval attempts before deciding you “know” something – though you might need more, depending on how long you’ve got before your exam, and how complex the information is.

5. If you’re trying to remember something complex, write it down

If you’re trying to remember a long formula, big number, quote, list, or diagram, you won’t be able to hold it all in your brain at once.

Say you need to remember a list of 7 factors.

By the time you’re trying to remember the sixth item, you can’t be sure whether you’re remembering a sixth that you hadn’t already thought of, or whether you’re actually just re-listing one of the items you’d already come up with!

So get the component parts out of your head and down on a sheet of paper as you think of them, so your memory is freed up to focus on remembering the missing information, and you can be certain you’ve got it all.

At first, retrieval practice won’t feel like the easiest way to memorise for exams, but stick with it!

You’re in elite study territory now: any student that decides to apply all of this properly will have a massive head-start on their peers when it comes to learning information for their exams.

Retrieval practice is incredibly powerful, but, let’s be honest, trying to pull information out of your brain is going to feel like harder work than just sitting back and re-reading your notes again!

A lot of students feel they prefer other ways to study for your exams: re-reading, highlighting, making notes or summarising are all very popular choices.

But here’s the thing:

Our own intuitions about what study techniques work best are really bad! Studies have repeatedly shown that “feel good” study methods that students like best (probably because they don’t take quite so much effort!) are having relatively small benefits, comparing to slightly more effortful but much more effective memorisation techniques for exams like retrieval practice.

Trust the science, and give it a go: you will be astonished at the results!

Ooooh, and just before you go… don’t leave without your copy of my “Science of Learning Cheat Sheet”: my four all-time fave strategies for studying smarter. Retrieval practice is absolutely on the list – but make sure you check out the other techniques too!

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22 Comments

This post is incredibly insightful! I’ve struggled with memorization in the past, but the techniques you shared—especially the use of mnemonic devices and spaced repetition—sound promising. I’m excited to try them out for my next exams. Thanks for breaking it down so clearly!

Hey! Glad you enjoyed it – wishing you every success in your exams 😀

thank you . this very useful for to study for my exam

Thanks for stopping by, so glad to help! Wishing you every success in the exam, you’ve got this 😀

– William

This is an interesting and informative post on memorization techniques that can help students remember what they study during exams. It’s great to know about the science behind effective memory retention, and I look forward to learning more from this article.

How do you do the method on a day before your exam?

How can I remember what I read on the day of exam

1. Re. how to do the methods the day before an exam – it’s exactly the same. You might also like to check out my guide to exam-week / test-taking technique https://geni.us/exams .

2. Re. how to remember what you read on the day of the exam: “READ” is the key word that jumped out at me here! If all you’re doing is reading, it’s really hard to remember. Check out more effective study methods at https://examstudyexpert.com/how-to-study-effectively/

Am definitely trying out the retrieval practice cos am about to write an exam

Brilliant – good luck with it! It will probably feel hard at first – that feeling is the feeling of your memory building, keep going 🙂

Thanks for this enlightening . It really open my understanding to some things that u have been doing that are actually mKingm my brain weaker

Okay, this is seriously the first time I actually really enjoyed what I was reading and continued it till the end (considering English is not my mother language and I normally get tired and bored pretty fast). I also listened to one of your podcasts. Your content is really fascinating and helpful. Thank you.

That’s lovely feedback – thank you so much for sharing, Florentina. I hope you’re finding some useful ideas – anything else we can do to support, just let me know!

This was one of the first articles I read from this website – and I’m so glad I did! Tried and tested these tips myself and they work wonders – smart studying is the way to go 🙂

This is one of the most incredible blogs I’ve read in a very long time. The amount of information here is stunning. Great stuff; please keep it up!

I’ve been using retrieval practice for several years, after reading about it in a book by researchers in the field. Some other things that are necessary: 1. Retrieval practice is great for improving factual information for factual exams, but is less helpful for exams that require applying remembered knowledge to new situations. The main issue here is that students need to do more than just remember things, they need to apply that knowledge. So: 2. Practice applying remembered information to new situations. 3. When doing “brain dumps” or “mind maps” filling in the missing information is important, but students should also _correct_ their mistakes. 4. A related method that I use: write questions in the margins of lecture notes and Powerpoint slides related to the information in the slide. 5. After reading the slide, and writing and reading back the question, ask yourself to answer the question. And, ask your, “What did I just learn in this slide (or paragraph or abstract or paper or movie or video or flash card)?

I should add, 6. All of this takes time, so don’t cram or study at the last minute. 7. Check out the “Method of Inquiry” (related to my point #4) from researchers at Ryerson University in Canada.

Thanks for such a quality comment, Beccles. Are you a current student? Would love to do a mini-interview (5-10 mins) with you for the Exam Study Expert podcast about your experiences with retrieval practice, and your tips for success. Would you be up for that? ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/exam-study-expert-study-tips-psychology-hacks-to-learn/id1456034719 )

Great tips for students!

I am preparing for my exam that I failed once. I was into feel good study mode, and now I discover this retrieval process. I will use this from now on and will try to stick with it. Better to stick with a scientific proven methods than repeating my feel good technique which didnt give me results.

Wishing you every success in your re-take! If you come up against any questions on using the techniques, I’m always happy to try and answer them – put them here or drop me an email ( https://examstudyexpert.com/about/contact/ ).

Good luck 🙂

Thank you for sharing this excellent article. I used this article to show my assignment in college. Excellent job.

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Five minutes a day to exam success: with retrieval journaling - OC Tuition - […] “Retrieval practice” means learning by practising remembering (or “retrieving”) what you know. Flashcards, self-testing and past paper questions all…
Introducing: the greatest back-to-school study tip of all time - - […] journaling is based on the two most powerful principles of effective learning known to science: retrieval practice and spaced…

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