Any tips in memorizing facts like sejarah, sastera?

[y_benjie]

Anyone? Please share. Thanks a lot!

[chenchow]

I think the main crux of studying these subjects are to understand them, and not to memorize.

For instance history, you would need to build up appreciation of the history, understand why those actions were done. Understand the surrounding at those time frame, picture yourself with the situation and that would provide you with the frame work to write very well for history.

There is no question that would test you on specific date, time or name in SPM History. Pretty much, you would need to understand the situation, and picture the situation and think why those people do so.

I have never done any memorization for history, and yet I do pretty well in it. One of the methods that I use to study is to role play and actually act out in front of screen, picturing the situation. I enjoy reading the textbook, as it is more like story book, where you understand the scenario, and you can then just write on anything being asked.

Start reading before go to class, and when your teachers explain about it, you would have greater understanding about it.

If you are cramming at last minute, this wouldn't work. Good Luck~!

[USSDefiantNX74205]

As much as I'd like our history lessons to involve thinking and understanding (and maybe even discuss and dispute some of the facts in the textbook) the sad reality is that history lessons in Malaysia mean memorizing, and nothing more.

I remember my teacher explaining to me the marking scheme for SPM sejarah in F5, which goes something like this: 1 mark is given to each 'kata kunci' and additional marks are given for elaboration. As such, if one is able to memorize the key words and its elaboration, you'd get some pretty high marks. Everything you need is from the textbook. To give you an example of how absurd this system is, I had a friend who could only remember the 'kata kunci' during his SPM trial examination and wrote a whole lot of crap about Buddha gaining enlightenment and mengasaskan Putrajaya and Cyberjaya. But because he had the correct 'kata kunci', he went on to get half the marks that the essay offered.

Absurd? That was what I thought.

[wawa]

Maybe it depends on wether you're a 'visual' or 'audio' person. Then play on your strengths.

Ie, check out if you can remember things better by their sound or by picturing it in your mind. For me more inclined towards visual, I used to remember sejarah and moral by 'looking' at the book and remembering page by page. :oops: My sis, audio by nature, justs chants out loud the entire biology bab and it goes into her head immediately. :!: Play on yer strenghts lor..

[balderdash]

Hmmm I don't remember my History teacher ever giving me 'kata kunci' and stuff like that....what I remember was that she'd painstakinglu summarise everything for us into mind charts for us to study. How I studied for history then was to tell myself stories - i.e. read and then talk to myself. Heck that was the same thing that I did for STPM Econs. For STPM lit I didn't memorise - I suppose it was cos I'd been studying the texts for 2 years and it was just stuck in my head already.

And think of it this way - if you just memorise, wont' you have the same answers as everyone else? Poor exam-marker.

[youngyew]

To give you an example of how absurd this system is, I had a friend who could only remember the 'kata kunci' during his SPM trial examination and wrote a whole lot of crap about Buddha gaining enlightenment and mengasaskan Putrajaya and Cyberjaya. But because he had the correct 'kata kunci', he went on to get half the marks that the essay offered.

Absurd? That was what I thought.
I think that the teacher who went on to give half the marks was more absurd than the marking scheme... :wink:

[youngyew]

In my opinion, repetition does work but it only applies for short-term memory. You can rote memorise a chapter for your monthly test, but by the time you have your final exam 90% of what you have memorised would probably have vanished into the thin air, and you will end up memorising everything again.

I agree with the posts above that we should employ strategies which suit us best. If you are better at "auditory memory" then go for chanting, singing or listening attentively at class; if you are visually orientated then draw your own flowchart and familiarise yourself with it. In all cases, especially for history, let yourself be a part of the story, imagine that you are one of the characters of the story. Think how he thinks, know why he did the things he had done, empathize what it was like when World War erupted... it does help a lot.

Talking about keywords... you can hate it, swear it, curse it or swallow it, but at the end of the day, they are the things that earn you marks. I personally hate rote memorisation of keywords too, but nevertheless, I still do memorise them.

One of the strategies that makes keyword easier to memorise is well-thought mnemonics. Mnemonics are words, rhymes, story, or sentences that make it easier for us to memorise keywords or story sequences. Now that I am taking medicine course, I realized that mnemonic is indeed one of the most important strategies of improving your studies. There is even a website dedicated to the mnemonics of medicine-related stuff (http://www.medicalmnemonics.com).

To give you some ideas of how mnemonics work, here are some of my favourites: * sorry if my examples are mostly about reproductive system, it just happens that this is my current topic :twisted: *
1.
Fact: The pathway of a sperm in male reproductive system is from Seminiferous Tubules to Epididymis to Vas deferens to Ejaculatory duct.
Mnemonic: My boyfriend's name is STEVE.

2.
Fact: Erection is controlled by Parasympathetic nervous system while ejaculation is controlled by sympathetic nervous system.
Mnemonic: Point and Shoot.

3.
Fact: The abundance of white blood cells in decreasing order is Neutrophil, Lymphocyte, Monocyte, Eosinophil and Basophil.
Mnemonic: Never Let Monkey Eat Banana.

4.
Fact: The colour code of resistors from 0 to 9 is Hitam, Perang, Merah, Oren, Kuning, Hijau, Biru, Ungu, Kelabu, Putih.
Mnemonic: Sorry, too vulgar to be typed on ReCom. My friend created this mnemonics in form 1, and I can recall it until today. Basically it's a vulgar sentence with a combination of Hokkien and Malay words. :lol:


Hope that helps. If everything else fails, remember one word: priority. Remember to prioritize on the importance of the facts, and make sure you remember the more important ones if you are running out of time. It works most of the time.

[yen_05]

For history...my opinion...
It is not enough by reading the text book only. There should be some output after much input that you have done. For instance, one should do a mind map after reading every chapter or subtopic...that is what my history teacher did in F5. She will ask us to read up that chapter and the next day in class, she will ask one by one to write something about the topic or subtopic we have read in front on the blackboard. If individually, just take a piece of paper and jot down whatever you remember and understand on that piece of paper after finish reading the textbook.

For sastera....read up the text. Read up all the novel, cerpen, drama and prosa tradisional...make sure you know how the stories goes, the main theme of the stories and the characters in in it( watak utama, watak protagonis and antagonis, watak bulat dan bundar, watak pipih, watak dinamik,etc...).

For all those puisi tradisional: understand the meaning tried to be conveyed by the author in every stanza, find out about the gaya bahasa( anafora, epifora, asonansi, aliterasi, personifikasi, metafora, inversi, hiperbola, etc) and the unsur bunyi(unsur jeda, etc..). The most important....must understand the theme of any pantun, sajak and the pengajaran. I will suggest that one should do some short notes( about the meaning, gaya bahasa,....whatever is important) next to the text of any pantun, syair, sajak..etc...for easier reference.. :D :D

[Aki]

Actually,i think sejarah SPM is quite easy if u grasp the skill to study it.If u have gone through the past year questions b4 this,u will realise memorising dates and the whole story is not really important.Notice the mindmaps and big titles in testbook,these r what u need to study,etc:sebab,faktor,akibat,kesan,ciri-ciri in very topics,these r the questions which always comes up either in objektif or essay questions. If u have no more times n u really cant remember much,remember the points i mention about and usually 50 marks or more are already in your pockect.

[chenchow]

I fully agree with the notion that each of us would learn through different means, as pointed out by wawa and other ReComers, and hence, we shouldn't just mere copy whichever ways others have done, and apply it to our own. We could however, try it out and see how effective it is for us.

On discussion based courses, like history, I personally like to do it on a discussion basis. Through discussion, we can have better understanding of the whole issue, and another thing, would be curiosity to find out more about it. Like it or not, often our syllabus does not cover sufficiently for many topics. Often, it is just skimping the surfaces, as we race through many topics, and this is happening at every level, even at university level, and often, what we are learning is really just the surface. So, I would hope that ReComers could utilize the web, to search for more related information. It might not be tested, but knowing the background situation, understanding the scenario, that would definitely help a lot in your understanding.

I personally like to just go google or go to wikipedia to just search on some of the stuff I have learned, just to see more perspectives, and perhaps more background information on it. Some may argue that time could be a limiting factor, but I personally believe that it really depends on time management. Everyone has 24 hours, and to be frank, if we allocate our time well, it is possible for us to find some short time.

Say, we just want to read for fun, the time when we are waiting for bus/train/friends etc, that could be a good time to read. Keep a notebook with yourself all the time, and list down stuff that you need to remember, and that would help you save a lot of time trying to recall on things.

[ElansarGelmir]

Try telling stories to your friends or family members... Like about the economic development in Malaysia. Just tell them whatever you know... And of course, ask them to ask you anything that they don't understand... like why this, why that... Answering KBKK questions can give you a better understanding about what's going on...