Devyani – Week 15 – Memory Palaces and Mental Breakdowns
It has become an unfortunate habit of my brain to forget all my material the minute I exit the classroom after a test. Now, with AP exam season close-approaching, all of it is threatening to come crashing down on my head. Reaction rate law? Mean value theorem? What’s that? Not to mention that I’m terrified I don’t have enough knowledge about current events to get me through the English and Spanish exams, even if we’ve been reading up the entire year.
(Watch me hit mid-break depression next Wednesday and say, “It’s a 'week before' problem.” And then it’ll be pushed to “the weekend before.” But we don’t mention that.)
But, of course, that’s all a spring break problem. Starting Thursday evening–I swear.
After exams, though, I know that the same thing will happen: I will forget. In that moment of catharsis, once I step out of my last exam, all the knowledge I have accumulated over the last year will be expelled from my mind. I don’t remember much from AP World last year, and what I do remember are merely flashes that leave just as quickly as they arrive. (The Mongols! Caravanserai! The M.A.I.N. reasons for World War I! Proxy wars!) Sorry, Mr. Heimler.
So, what will I remember from the next four weeks?
The eureka! moment I will feel when I finally understand a concept in a stroke of brilliance. The daily walks in the evening when I am dragged away from my desk where I’ll be hunched over my notes. The absurd mnemonic devices I’ll come up with and then beat into my brain in order to remember elemental groups. The way my friends and I will band together in order to prevent each other from having yet another mental breakdown. The insanely important information and formulas from my notes that I will highlight and rewrite again and again. Hopefully.
I will definitely remember the cold exam room stifled with anxiety and echoing with the sounds of last-minute revision, distressed whispers, and calming inhale-exhales. But I will also remember the feeling of the sun on my face, brighter than it has ever been, as I step out of that room. (Rhetorically analyze the ironic juxtaposition between summer weather and internal despair to create conflicted emotions of freedom and captivity in students.)
Exam season will always bring mixed emotions–that feeling of so close, yet so far. I probably won’t remember everything I studied–but I’ll remember what it felt like to survive it. Even if I forget every formula, every vocabulary word, and every law, I’ll get to keep the chaos, the people, and the small wins–and that will be enough.
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| Image source: Dreamstime |
Hi Devyani, I totally agree that for the majority of my exams, it simply feels like I’m memorizing information simply for the sake of the exam, never for long term use. The only thing I remember from AP exams last year was the procrastination that I went through and how schedules that I had originally created were abandoned in the farce of “doing it later,” a later which never happened. I love eureka moments, not just in these next two weeks but also year-round; that feeling of absolute bliss and enlightenment you can only feel after something great brings me the greatest joy, maybe even more so than when I play games. I’ve never really tried to use mnemonic devices to remember material, but perhaps I will try it out now in a last ditch effort to remember a few extra rhetorically accurate verbs. My favorite part of AP exam week is the feeling of rejuvenation I feel after them, knowing that the stressful school year is coming to a close while appreciating every moment I experienced. I hope that the only thing I remember from these next two weeks is the work I put in and not any feelings of regret, thinking that I “could have done better.”
ReplyDeleteHi Devyani, I feel the exact same way as you right now. I literally forget everything coming out of my exams, especially if I started studying last minute. However, as a tip, you can use spaced repetition! There’s software—like Anki and Memrise—that test you on a certain time period based on how well you remember each flashcard. So if you do good, it will test you in one day, and then three days if you get it right again, and then a week, and so on. I found that this is pretty helpful for long term memory, especially in classes where memorization is key (like AP World and AP Bio). Caravanserai is, funnily enough, one of the random things I also remember from AP World. I have no idea why.
ReplyDeleteI did not start studying on Thursday evening. I tried. I played Minecraft instead.
Honestly, even though exams are stressful, I feel like I have somehow romanticized that experience. Maybe it’s because I feel good after I know I did well on an exam, and my brain remembers that feeling. Either way, I don’t feel too scared for exams (unless I didn’t study, which will hopefully not happen anytime soon). In one way, I feel like I’m kind of excited? to take the test and get it over with—and hopefully, feel that sense of accomplishment afterwards. Thanks for sharing! See you on Friday and good luck on your AP exams (except Spanish because you definitely don’t need any luck for that one).
Hi Devyani! With the AP exams encroaching on us, I have to say, your blog strikes a deep resonance with how I feel on a daily basis. Almost everyday, I remember a random thing that I think I will need to review for the upcoming exams. Integration by parts, intermolecular forces, tonicity and osmoregulation–you name it. With that constant reminder and stress comes our absolute favorite: procrastination–a “‘week before’ problem,” as you mentioned.
ReplyDeleteBut all throughout the stressful times, it’s important to remember that there are others around you going through the exact same thing. When I think about it, I often forget such a crucial element, thinking I’m all alone in this when I could just talk to someone and we’d just laugh it off with a few self-deprecating jokes. “[T]o keep the chaos, the people,” as you said, is definitely the best part about going through the said “chaos,” the constant presence and support being a steady backbone to lean on when one is in need of a few bad jokes in the middle of the night after almost crashing out. Anyway, good luck for the APs. I’m sure you’ll do just fine!