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How do you memorise essays? (1 Viewer)

Danger

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I have an in-class essay due in 3 weeks and I was just wondering whats the most effective way of memorising your essay
 

banjie

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yeah, that generally helps me. Write it over and over until you can remember it
 

chard07

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split ur essay into its paragraphs and label them with subheadings based on its content; re-write them as much as u can under the headings, that way when u write ur essay out, the subheadings will link your memory through to the rest of the information. u get?
 

collide

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Yeah I usually memorise paragraph by paragraph by re-writing it and also reciting it to myself.. then I'd make sure I know the order of the paragraphs, how each paragraph starts and the points that are made within each paragraph lol. I find that by doing this, words should just come to you easily.
 

cuppy

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just know your stuff and keep reading it over and over. even recite it out loud if it helps. writing practice essays under exam conditions also helps you write faster and memorise key points.
 

alcalder

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Or just get the main ideas into your head and write a mnemonic of those ideas that you can learn with a rhyme. Then write the paragraphs, ideas out new when you get to the essay.

Memorising essays really isn't a good way to study for an exam question. It gives you little flexibility to just write a good essay when a new type of question is thrown at you in an exam. For example, if you are going to be given an essay question about a character's reaction, what main points would you need to include in such an essay?

My hubby learned mnemonics for writing Economics essays and it got him 48/50 for 3U Eco!

This way, you can have several essays up your sleeve and ready to go and not just one perfectly memorised one.
 
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just keep reading it, it takes me ~7 hours to memmorise an 6 page essay (that takes 45 mins to write)
 

zdzislaw

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Then be prepared to work for 7 hours.
It's your HSC and you have to be prepared to do the work.
 

Dave2007

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I generally disapprove of memorising essays, but if you're almost certain about the question you'll get, here's the method.

Don't memorise the intro/conclusion - this will stop any temptation not to answer the question. Then number all the main body paragraphs, and write the numbers (e.g. 1-5) down the side of an A4 page

Then next to each para write three dot points that summarise the content of your paragraph. For example you may write a quote, two techniques and what this says about a journey in dot point form.

So then you've got it all written down in point form on one page - this will help people with photographic memories.

Now to actually memorise it. Have the paper a foot away from you. Then go through the paragraphs in your head. For example think para1, okay, what am i talking about? Oh yeah! 3 points... I remmeber the first one was about x...oh yeah and the quote was y!

Keep going over it in your head until you are pretty confident you can recall it all. Then as a final test, write it!

And there, essay memorisation in 1.5 hrs.
 

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