A heads up; apparently the examples are drawn only from scientific literature. Didn’t seem to make much diff on the test words I typed in, but just so’s ya know.

Take a peek at the intro video and then go give it a whirl. Click the pic to watch the video at YouTube.

Simple Productivity: 10 Ways to Do More by Focusing on the Essentials

News flash; Flash Cards, boring and basic though they may be, work. But. They don’t work nearly as well for most of us as they should. Why? Because you’re doing it wrong. At least, I was doing it wrong throughout most of my college career. Here’s how to avoid my early mistakes.

1. Don’t put too much on the wee cards.

They’re “flash” cards. Think, “lightning flash,” or “flasher.” You’re supposed to get it all at a glance. Back to those third-grade multiplication facts; you see the problem, “4 x 5,” on one side of the card and immediately recall “20.” A good flash card has one fact on it. Count’em. One. More than that and it’s not a flash card; it’s a tiny page of notes.

For instance, the poor man’s textbook (Wikipedia) more or less accurately drones, “Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side chain that varies between different amino acids. These molecules contain the key elements of Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. These molecules are … blah, blah, blah.” Many students can and will put all of that onto a single 3 x 5 card, but just because you can fit it all doesn’t mean you should (a principal that also applies to spandex). Instead, break it up onto several different cards.

The first flash card might say…

“Amino Acids contain…” on one side, and “amine group, carboxylic acid group, variable side chain” on the other.

Some of you with higher math skills will have no doubt noted that that second side technically has more than one fact. Thank you for not snidely pointing that out. It’s as close to one fact as we can get it and still have a useful bit to commit to memory.

The next card would have…

Side A: “Amino Acid Elements” > Side B: “Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Nitrogen”

So maybe not “one” fact, but cut it down as close as you reasonably can to one. Why? Because you want to review more and more those facts you’re finding most slippery. If you have several facts on a single card, you’re stuck reviewing the whole card repeatedly when you really just need to review one little fact more often.

2. And the whole point is to review it regularly and repeatedly until recall becomes automatic. Too many of us carefully construct the flash cards, and then, with a quiet sense of self-satisfaction, we set them aside as a job well done, only to take them up again, if at all, scant hours before the exam. Whilst constructing the cards is indeed a helpful step, it needs follow up to help you break the surly bonds of forgetfulness.

Review those new cards several times a day for awhile. Work for automatic recall. Carry that card around until you can reliably recall the card after a 24-hour hiatus. But be careful…

3. Don’t review it too much either. You should struggle to recall the card the next time. You need to work for it. Research shows that if you fight to recall the fact, yet eventually do recall it, the memory trace will be stronger.

This means a staggered review schedule is most powerful. I review newly minted cards several times on their day of creation. If I can still successfully recall the card after having slept on it, I won’t review it again for a few days. I want to be able to fish that fact out of the depths but with a bit of struggle. I’ll wait a bit longer between each successive review and so transfer the fact into my long-term memory.

4. Take care not to encode the information in only one direction. Don’t just memorize, “amino acid elements > carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen.” Go back the other way; “carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are the elements forming … > amino acids.” Our brains are fickle beasties and we’ve all had the frustrating experience of being unable to recall a fact we memorized because it was presented in a way in which we didn’t memorize it.

5. Don’t stop at basic black and white cards. It’s easy to add extra info by varying the card color, texture, size, location, etc. I have a friend who sat in different rooms of her house when memorizing paintings for her art history final. Each room was associated with a particular style; paintings she learned in the kitchen were post-modern, those studied in the bedroom were romantic, in the living room they were baroque, etc. On the test she just needed to remember where in the house she was sitting when she saw that particular painting.

You might use those same principals to associate particular geological occurrences with specific time periods or to link gender to those bothersome Spanish words. Use your imagination.

So use those flash cards. Use them liberally and often. But make sure to avoid these common mistakes, and you’ll find it requires much less pounding to wedge those facts into your cranial cavity.

abstract
adjacent
alimentary
anachronism
anvil
archaic
astral
awful
beguile
billow
boorish
buffet
canvass
caustic
chauvinist
climactic
comestible
concerted
consensus
conviction
cremate
dauntless
defrock
derelict
diffuse
disenfranchise
distort
drama
edict
emblazon
ensue
espionage
exhilarating
facade
fermentation
fleck
forge
fulminate
genealogy
gnarl
gruesome
hazardous
hoax
iconoclastic
imperial
inaugurate
indelible
infirmity
insurgent
invoke
juggernaut
lank
licentious
lumen
mandate
maxim
militant
mollycoddle
muster
noisome
obscure
optometrist
pachyderm
parlance
pendant
pessimism
plaster
posture
preposterous
proliferate
provision
putrid
ramble
recidivism
rejuvenate
reprieve
retort
rousing
saturnine
sectarian
shed
slap
solicitous
spruce
stoke
subtlety
swamp
tawdry
threadbare
tout
trinket
undulate
ursine
verbalize
viscous
wrongheaded

To become an excellent hawk you roam far and wide with your eyes peeled for anything that looks tasty. When you see it, you dive on it, kill it, and take it home to the kids. That’s also–figuratively speaking–how to make a great scholar.

During a lecture or while reading a text, you are cruising, eyes peeled, looking for any little tasty bit of learning you can find. Once you see it, go and get it! Own it! Kick it’s hiney and eat it for dinner. Here’s how…

1. Pay rapt attention. Birds of prey are properly known as raptors, from the Latin word meaning “one who seizes by force.” As you sit in that lecture hall or hunker down with your Ramen and that three-inch thick, hernia-inducing textbook, actively look for facts and concepts.Some textbooks and professors will make it easy for you. They’ll put main points in bold letters, or point to a key concept and say, “this will be on the test.” This makes your job easy; pounce on the point.

   Other lecturers and books will camouflage important points in a thicket of words, unimportant drivel, and poorly-told anecdotes. Only the most attentive raptors will spy their prey and swoop down for the kill.

2. Pounce on the point. That means go grab it and make it yours by putting it in your notes using some of the note taking methods I’ve mentioned. Notes are the equivalent of talons for the raptor. The prey is not yours until you’ve got a death grip on it. If it’s in your notes, then it’s yours. You can eat it later at your leisure.
3. Rip it apart and consume it. Don’t be content to simply get the concept into your notes. You must really understand it. One great way to do that is by asking great questions[hidepost] and then answering them. Better questions force you to evaluate, predict, judge, compare and contrast, or synthesize, etc. (see Costa’s Levels of Inquiry).Example: Instead of asking the low-level question, ” What were the causes of the European conquest of the Americas?” ask the higher-level question, “What strategies could indigenous Americans have used to more effectively resist the European conquest?” Another example: Instead of asking, “What are the stages in cellular mitosis?” ask, “What stage of mitosis is most dangerous and risky for the organism? Why?”

   You can use these same questioning strategies to help learn vocabulary for tests like the SAT and GRE. Low-level questions such as, “What does prolix mean?” aren’t nearly as helpful as higher-level questions such as, “In what situations would the word prolix be a better word choice than verbose?”

   Good questions force you to work at a whole new level, and that will show on your test performance. And notice, in each of the examples above, the higher level questions can’t be answered unless you know the answers to the lower level questions. [/hidepost]

   Higher level questions are also great ones to ask in class. Most profs (but not all) like well thought out questions. BONUS: If the prof is going to fast, a good question will slow them down so you can catch up.

Actively go and pursue knowledge by paying careful attention, capturing concepts in your notes, and then processing the knowledge with good questions. Don’t settle for being a vegetable waiting for the next load of manure. Be a hawk! Go own that knowledge!

abstinence
adherent
alienate
amulet
antler
archaeology
astigmatism
awe
begrudge
bilk
boor
bucolic
canto
causal
chastise
clientèle
comely
conception
consecrate
conveyance
creep
daunt
defray
deranged
diffidence
disembark
distinctive
draft
eddy
embitter
ensconce
esoteric
exhale
fabricate
ferment
flay
forfeit
fulcrum
gazette
glutton
grueling
hazard
hoary
icon
imperceptible
indefatigable
infinitesimal
insuperable
invocation
jug
languor
license
lumber
manacle
mawkish
milieu
mollify
musky
nocturnal
obnoxious
optional
ovoid
parity
penchant
pervert
plane
postulate
prepossessing
proletarian
provincial
putrescent
ram
recession
rejoinder
repress
retiring
rotundity
saturate
sect
sheathe
slander
solicitor
sprout
stoic
subterfuge
swagger
tautological
thrash
touchy
trim
undertaker
urgent
veracity
viscid
writhe

abstemious
adhere
alias
amputate
antithesis
asteroid
avuncular
beget
bilious
boon
buccaneer
canter
caulk
chasten
cliche
comeback
concentric
conscript
convex
creed
daub
defoliate
deputize
die
disdain
distinction
draconian
ecstasy
embezzlement
enrapture
eschew
exertion
exult
feral
flaunt
forestall
fugitive
gawk
glutinous
gruel
havoc
hoard
ichthyology
imperative
inarticulate
indecisive
infiltrate
insularity
inviolable
judicious
languish
libretto
lull
mammoth
maverick
migratory
molecule
muse
nirvana
obloquy
optimum
overwrought
parish
penance
perversion
plait
postmortem
preponderance
projectile
provident
putrefy
rally
recess
reiterate
reprehensible
retinue
rotunda
satirical
secrete
shear
slake
solicit
sportive
stodgy
subsume
suture
taut
thrall
touchstone
trilogy
understate
urge
veracious
visceral
writ