1. Why Can’t I Remember?
A brief explanation of why final
exams are so hard, and how to
help make it easier.
2.
3.
4.
5. Quickly Answer These Questions
What color shirt was the teacher wearing in
your last class?
What time did you leave the house this
morning?
What did you eat for breakfast yesterday?
What did you eat for lunch on Christmas day?
6. Now Tell ME…
What did the grey text say on the first slide of
this presentation?
_ _____ ___________
__ ___ _____ _____
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _, _ _ _ _ _ _
__ ____ ____ __
_ _ _ _ _ _.
7. Why Can’t I Remember?
A brief explanation of why final
exams are so hard, and how to
help make it easier.
Why is it you can remember the name of your first grade teacher or lyrics to a song you don’t even like, but you can’t remember the 4 things you went to the store to buy or the answers to an exam you studied for?
Our brains evolved to code and interpret complex stimuli such as images, colors, structures, sounds, smells, tastes, touch, positions, emotions and language.
We use these to make sophisticated models of the world we live in.
Our memories store all of these very effectively.
Unfortunately, a lot of the information we have to remember in modern life is presented differently – as words printed on a page.
While writing is a rich and sophisticated medium for conveying complex arguments, our brains do not easily encode written information, making it difficult to remember.
