How to study from multiple sources

I did great in school, where we only had a single textbook per subject, and I would pretty much memorise the whole thing. Exams were a breeze cuz I could see the textbook in my mind and knew every detail. But college is completely opposite, I have to study from multiple sources, including online articles ne videos, and sometimes 5-6 books for a single subject. I find it hard to remember anything without wasting hours and hours revising, so I’m behind schedule all the time. Does anyone have tips on remembering what u study from different sources?
The reason I need to memorise so much information is because a lot of my subjects are fact based

(edited 2 years ago)

Reply 1

na.minnie

I think it's not good to do that. I think you should change from memorizing the books to instead understanding them and once you understand the concept, it would be really easy to further your knowledge. If you don't deeply understand things and memorize it's gonna be a short term memory and you would somehow forget it and won't make uses of it. So I think the best way is that I suggest you to try and understand what they are saying and stuff like that rather than memorizing the whole thing :smile:

Reply 2

Anonymous #1

i dont persoanlly use 5-6 sources but for biology, i would use a video, specification and two textbooks. First I’d look at the specification to get a broad idea what objectives I should be hitting. Then i briefly read the textbook to see what the necessary ideas are. Then I watch the video and make my notes. Anything extra I’ll add in from the textbook.

It is time consuming but maybe because ima. slow worker myself

Reply 3

Jesse88

Original post by na.minnie

The problem with my subjects is they are mostly fact based, like history, social issues, etc. So they do infact involve a lot of memorisation as there is not much to understand :frown:

Reply 4

University of Portsmouth Student Rep

Official Rep

Original post by Jesse88

Hi @Jesse88 👋,

Congratulations on doing great in school! Having a photographic memory like this is an amazing tool that you have! 🎉

A suggestion I have for you that I found really helpful was creating mind maps for each subject area including all of the information from all of the different sources. This will take time in the short term as you will have to refer to all of the different sources but in the long run it will save you time as you will have everything in one place. It also gives you a visual stimuli that you can focus on and memorise.

Hope this helps - let me know if you have any further questions!
Shelby - UoP Rep

Reply 5

Jesse88

Original post by University of Portsmouth Student Rep

That’s a great idea, thanks :smile:

Reply 6

na.minnie

Original post by Jesse88

The problem with my subjects is they are mostly fact based, like history, social issues, etc. So they do infact involve a lot of memorisation as there is not much to understand :frown:

ahh I see then maybe you could try doing memorization games to improve your strengths?