There is a report in The Tribune dated May 19, 2006 about the topper in commerce stream in Board Examination (probably in ICSE, the reporter has not specified that in which board the candidate has topped.) titled "Being Regular in Studies is her Success Mantra" by Geetanjali Gayatri.
I have hi-lighted some lines and reproduce them below.
"It was all about being attentive in class, making notes, slogging hard without being a book worm and just keeping your eyes and ears open.
"I concentrated on being thorough with my books and went over my lessons again and again. Then, of course, for quick recall, I made my own memory maps which helped me revise an entire lesson in a single glance,".
"I don't advocate tuitions at all. Besides being regular, devoting time for self-study is very essential. …"
I am more attracted to the phrase that “for quick recall, I made my own memory maps which helped me revise and entire lesson in a single glance.”
These are highly portent lines. They are the keywords telling the material things of a hard work. They have really surprised me. It is really amazing if these lines are spoken by student of +2 level. If these lines are written by Geetanjali, after listening to the topper, even then, they are very important guidelines for all the students to understand, digest and practice.
I myself, have tried to question that what actually does it mean when we say that one should do hard work in studies. I have been shifting from one explanation to other but have never reached a perfect answer.
In the above mentioned lines, the topper has remarked that for quick recall, she made her own memory maps which helped her revise an entire lesson in a single glance. This part of the quoted lines is telling about a functional and in-practice activity which is required to achieve the success. I have learned it at a very latter stage of my academic career.
What actually is this memory map? It is not an easy thing to explain. Every brain and person have his own model and explanation to give. But before that, you have to undergo an exercise to reach that memory map level. In my case, the exercise involves "Reading Writing Reading Writing Remembering Reading Writing and finally writing and writing again writing till you reach a stage wherein you can create a diagram on the contents of the piece which you are reading". The above mentioned exercise requires time and consistency. It is really a grueling regime but the final result is in form of a mental product which only you can recreate or convert into some type of a pen diagram or tag or small snippet type notes. Those notes or pen diagrams are such that they act as a summary to a whole chapter or even a whole book. The total space which such diagrams or snippets take is hardly a small percentage of the total space on pages that a book contains. All this activity takes lot of efforts and exertion which defines the Hard Work. These mental diagrams actually act as a symbol to the whole content of a book or concept on which you can elaborate to any extend. If you are asked to write it in twenty words on a concept, you can then produce amazing combination of such words which give the gist with in the word limits. If on the other hand, you are asked to explain in detail, then also, you come out with a satisfying answer.
There are some more important points which should also be taken care of. You can only develop a good mental map if you read text books. If you read refreshers like MBD, or Evergreen, or JPH or something like that, then only way is to memorize that. You can not make a mental map. The mental map you can make in case of refreshers is only of a question which such books have tried to answer. If question is there, you can answer. If the wording of the question is changed then you may not be able to articulate at all.
The next thing, which the topper is mentioned is that she studied the whole year and did not suffer from last stage anxiety. That is another good feature about which she has talked. The anxiety is such a thing that it kills your interest in studies. I may like to say that it kills the possibility of the success.
In order to develop this ability of making mental maps, one has to devote time and undergo an exercise regularly. It requires years of practice. However, it is not that you have to do it for a decade. The feel of this idea of mental map can be acquired with in month or two but in order to develop an effective product in form of mental map, you have to practice it for a long time.
In my case, I have been shifting from one type of model of mental map to other. I starting with putting some tags on each paragraph on the book itself. On reading a paragraph, I used to write some phrases or title to each paragraph giving the gist of the content of the paragraph. Then I developed the habbit of underlining it. However, it was not useful, because gradually learned that I am slow to comprehend the contents of a paragraph and I underlined a wrong line. There is some other line, which is more useful. Secondly, the underlining practice destroyed the shape of the book and made the book untidy. I also adopted the practice of hi-lighting but it also makes your book messy. The next habbit which I developed was of writing the gist in my own words. It worked well but gradually what I learned that it took too much of time and somewhere I used to just copy the book verbatim. However, with passing of years, I matured and now I write effective summaries of what I have read. Simultaneously, I have developed the ability to close my eyes, and recollect that under which title what actually is written in the book. It helps me to recollect and write about a given topic in an effective manner. In between, I have developed other different models. I keep on shifting between such models and all of them can be called mental maps.
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