Ever wondered why we easily retain the novels and stories we read in our leisure time, but the theory subjects in CA exams – Law, Audit, SM, EIS, etc. give a lot of pain to almost all the CA aspirants? If you are also one among them, in this blog post let me suggest some technique to help you retain the theory papers better.
Technique: SQ3R
This is the Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review technique – one of the best and widely used techniques for memorizing theory subjects. Let’s see how this technique works…
SURVEY – Gather necessary information to build focus and formulate goals
Read the title of what you are reading. Let the mind prepare for what’s going to come next.
Read the introductory paragraph. Focus on the important points and gauge why you should read the material further.
Build structure to your thoughts by concentrating on each heading and sub-heading.
Give special attention to graphs, charts, tables and pictures. Try to capture them into your brain like an image, just like a camera.
Focus on the reading aids – bold fonts, italics, chapter contents, chapter objectives, etc to help sort, comprehend and retain better.
QUESTION – Engage your mind and concentrate
Turn each heading and sub-heading into as many questions as you feel would be answered in that section.
Ask yourself these questions:
o What is this chapter about?
o What questions is the chapter trying to address?
o How does this information help me?
When your mind is engaged in asking questions, it will automatically prompt you to find answers to those questions raised. This would make you more engaged in learning.
READ – Fill in the blanks
Read one section at a time and try to find answers for the questions your brain had raised in the previous step.
Keep reading and recognize the need to frame more questions you need to find answers about.
This will help you to read actively – something which will help you retain things for a long time, just like stories and novels or the social media posts we read daily.
RECITE – Train your mind to concentrate and learn as it reads
After each section you have read, go back to the questions your brain had raised and test if you can answer those from memory.
If not, look back at the text again, but don’t move on to the next section till you can recite all the answers from memory
REVIEW – Refine your mental structure and start building your memory
Once you have finished reading the entire chapter, go back over the questions (you may even take the help of the back questions provided at the end of each chapter in the ICAI Study Material) and see if you can still answer them.
Just read the headings and sub-headings and see if you can quickly recap what is mentioned in each such section.
If not, just look back and hit the refresh button in your memory.
Hope this helps. Once you practice this technique consciously, it will soon become a habit and start showing such positive results you would not believe. Like every good habit takes time to come straight from your subconscious mind, just give this technique some patient time and then see the magic!
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