How to remember a 90 word essay in french in one night

Yeah, the question says it all, i forgot about the test but was reminded today and now that i finished writing it out i need to remember it all(writing tests)! I have a bad memory and its hard to remember something that is not my own language. How do i remember at least half?

Reply 1

{Moss}

I'd recommend dividing it up into individual sentences. Then try and focus on one at a time, looking, then recalling. Try writing it from memory (similar to blurting) and then compare with the original to see how much you got right: repeat, maybe a few times per sentence? If you feel confident, move on to the next (there shouldn't be that many I think being 90 words). After you've done about half of the sentences, go back to the start and try and recall and blurt again, see how you're doing. If you're still doing well with that, move onto the next half. Then repeat that process until you feel confident with it.

Other things you could do to improve that method are:
-Timing yourself: try and get it within a nice timing barrier, to show that you're remembrance has improved.
-Making a mnemonic might help memorize specific sentences at the start. That gives you a beginning point to stem your recall from, rather than just drawing it from thin air.
-Remember to have a break! Don't try and cram it all in 20 minutes: give yourself small, 5 minute breaks every so often. That helps with your mental health (it's easy to stress), but also with recall - if you have a > 5m break, and recall it, that reinforces your memory even more.

I hope that helps! There's different ways to go about this, but hopefully something here helped? Hopefully others will give their thoughts too. Best of luck with memorising it, and with your exam :biggrin: