Expert: Josh - 7/28/2008

Question
its very difficult for me to remeber formulas,i learn them for my exams but then i forget them very quickly so can please tell me that what should i do for this(an easy way to remember formulas)plus also tell me some points to plot all type of graphs.

Answer
Hi Kelly

Thanks for the question. Since there was no mention of specific areas that you would like to discuss, I will attempt to answer your question in two parts. The main reasons people study are for personal enjoyment/fulfillment and progression in school/life. These two motivations each crafts a different answer to your question.

First, for self education, people generally desire to learn things which are useful. The types of formulas that I remember these days (long after I completed my secondary education) are concepts which bear meaning to everyday life and relevant to things we do. For example, formulas for compound interest, geometric series etc are important for personal reasons and to people who take out mortgages. If you intend to go into commerce, finance or actuarial studies in university, a solid grounding in these areas will serve you well when you encounter statistics and develop your expertise in forecast and modeling (called quantitative methods). For now, things like averages and standard deviation are things you should have a concrete understanding of. If you wish to move into engineering, a good command of algebra and elementary calculus (such as differentiation and integration) will not go astray. It definitely gives you an advantage in college. At this stage, you do not have to worry if you don't understand how proofs work. But everything in the school syllabus that is assumed knowledge for your chosen course at university (assuming that is what you want to do) you need to cover thoroughly in order to lay a solid foundation for tertiary study. If you haven't done certain prerequisites, you might be able to catch up as some university offer bridging courses to bring you up to speed.

There is a saying that the first 80% takes half the effort to learn, and the remaining 20% is equally hard if not more difficult to master. So, personally, my strategy would be devoting time to understanding fundamental concepts before attending to minor details. If you don't understand a formula from its symbolic representation, try looking at it from another angle. For me, I like visualizing things. Use internet resources to find some pictures and examples to shed light on obscure areas. Get a fellow student to explain an idea to you intuitively in language that you can understand. That is how memory work -- by association with things that we are familiar with. Some people think in pictures, not in words. Figure out what works best for you. Finally, weed out results which are secondary in importance. For example, once you learned how to find the area of a rectangle and triangle, you can also find the area of a regular polygon by breaking it into rectangular and triangular components. If it helps, don't bother with a formula for the area of a polygon (I'm just using this as an example) and derive the area from first principle (getting back to basics).

Second, for the purpose of passing exams, we should try narrowing down the scope.
a) consult the syllabus and check with your teacher to focus on areas which are examinable;
b) ask whether you are expected to remember certain formulas and go over past papers and study model answers to familiarize yourself with exam content and the style of questions.
c) assimilate information: simply committing something to memory does not mean you have understood something. Understanding something and the general purpose of exams is to see if you can apply what you have learned and use the tools to solve problems. A formula on its own is useless. You should be able to condense ideas if you see the relationship between things which at first seems unrelated.
d) get organized: prepare personal summary sheets containing essential formulas. Make this concise, e.g., in point form just so that it helps trigger your memory. This should only be helpful to you but no one else. Never leave the entire lesson in your notebook, the lesson contains too much redundant information; it's hard to sieve through.
e) finally, the obvious -- our memory roughly decays exponentially with time. The more regularly you revise something, the easier you can recall things.

I hope some of these suggestions might be useful.

You can visit these sites for information on graph plotting:
1. Straight line
http://www.gcse.com/maths/graphs2.htm
2. Parabola
http://a-s.clayton.edu/garrison/Math%200099/parabola.htm

Good luck!