How to Remember Faster and Study Better with Mnemonics (using ChatGPT as well)

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In this article, I will share some of the common mnemonics students can use to remember and connect concepts much more effectively, and also we can leverage on ChatGPT/Open AI technology to make mnemonics for us.

Read on to find out more!

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction

2. Mnemonics used in Primary School

3. Mnemonics for Medical Anatomy

4. Mnemonics for Physics

5. How to Use ChatGPT to make Mnemonics

6. Concluding Remarks

Introduction

Occasionally, we might come across terminologies or concepts that are much harder to memorise, and it might feel rather demoralising that you might forget it even after repeating it to yourself in your head multiple times (even when using the concept of spaced repetition and active recall). Therefore, I think it is also important to utilise interesting ways to make concepts stick in your head, with the use of wordplay. Mnemonics serve as a fun way to remember the nitty-gritty details at times because of how you can connect the different terminologies together. 

Mnemonics used in Primary School

It can also be an effective way to help your students remember certain concepts. For example, in primary school —>

1. Factors that are required for germination—> WOW - which stands for Water, Oxygen, Warmth

2. Factors that affect rate of evaporation —> WET - which stands for presence of Wind, Exposed Surface Area, Temperature

3. Even in Trigonometry - SOH CAH TOA was commonly taught to students when applying it to find the sine, cosine, and tangent values of a particular acute angle in a right-angle triangle.

By using mnemonics to group terms, it can help to organise your thoughts/ concepts from a big picture down to the small details.

Here are some interesting mnemonics I have come across when learning about various topics:

Mnemonics for Medical Anatomy

For example, when I was attempting to understand the anatomical positioning of the carpal bones in the hand, I found a useful mnemonic online: 

Source: https://www.scientificanimations.com, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

So Long To Pinky, Here Comes The Thumb

Scaphoid (boat), Lunate(crescent moon), Triquetrium (pyramid), Pisiform(pea-shaped), Hanate, Capitate (head), Trapezoid (wedge-shaped), Trapezium

Starting from the lateral side (the side with the radius) of the first layer (proximal),we have our (Lateral)Scaphoid to Pisiform (Medial) - and is at the pinky region.

Then we move down to the second layer (distal), starting with Hanate, all the way to Trapezium at the base of the thumb (which you can differentiate from trapezoid based on the mnemonic, “Thumb”). 

Based on this piece of information, I was able to draw better connections with other anatomical components of the upper limb, like the attachment sites of the muscles by having an easy method to conjure an image of the carpal bones based on a mnemonic.

Mnemonic for Physics

I have also used it to remember the electromagnetic spectrum, back in high school when I was learning about physics. 

• Rabbits (Radiowave)

• Mate (Microwaves)

• In (Infra-red)

• Very (Very)

• Unusual (Ultraviolet)

• eXpensive (X-Ray)

• Gardens (Gamma)

How to Use ChatGPT to make Mnemonics

Apart from the above examples, I have also experimented with ChatGPT to customise the mnemonic to fit the concepts I wanted to group together. 

When I was tutoring about the concept of Aerobic Respiration in Upper Secondary Biology, I felt that having a mnemonic helped with connecting the dots at least on a surface level - by grouping the different stages of aerobic respiration together based on the reactants, intermediate products formed as well as the stages.

If you feel that the mnemonic provided by ChatGPT is not memorable enough, you can always make one of your own. 

What I liked about making mnemonics is that it can be used as a precursor to actively recall the finer details (How NAD+ is re-oxidised /replenished for glycolysis reaction to occur, during which glucose is converted to pyruvate - linking to anaerobic respiration for humans (lactic acid) and yeast fermentation(ethanol).

Concluding Remarks

All in all, mnemonics is only one of the many learning techniques (some others include (Drawing Analogies & Mindmaps) that we can utilise to enhance our learning and make it easier for us to cluster and recall important details together. I believe that it is a useful (not essential) supplement to our learning because mnemonics might not necessarily work for everyone, but it did help me encode certain pieces of information that I can still remember up till today.

Upon reflecting, I do realise that most of the learning techniques that I have shared are mostly related to conceptual learning - more so for the sciences. For those who have tried similar methods and did not fare well with them, take my opinions with a pinch of salt, and for those who have yet to try this method, give it a go and see if it works for you!

Happy Reading,

ZX

Here are some other articles related to learning techniques: