do you learn by repition/rote, or do you comprehend?

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I ask because all through college I felt like a fraud because I studied for tests by writing a study guide and memorizing it. this never once failed me, ever. but I remember nothing of what I learned and now don't think I actually learned it at all and feel stupid. I graduated summa cum laude. I was, I am pretty convinced, a fraud.

I'm one of the people most anti-memorization instead of comprehension people I know.

I want to /understand/, not to memorize.

I understand. I can't remember if I memorize anyway.

I achieved more by understanding in my earlier years, but later more and more relied on rote memorization. It's always better to at least have some understanding of the theme/subject I study. I always envied a little those people who just rote memorized the subject quickly and got "A"-s on the exams. In fact, it happened more than once that someone with good rote memory got better grade than me who actually had some understanding on the subject...

If I really want to memorize something by rote, I need numerous repetitions. This is one reason why I struggle with learning a language.

I must have learned something at the time, because I always wrote A papers. but I must have just learned for the short term. I studied philosophy. it is mostly alien to me now.

I learn by memorization, but it is the doing that makes it stick.

I generally learn by rote and repetition as opposed to comprehension.

I learn by rote unless it has do do with my special interests. When I learn about my special interests, I learn by comprehension and memorization.

I can't learn by memorizing. If I don't understand it, I won't remember it.

"Understanding" is the fraud. "Memorizing" is less of a fraud. Radical Behaviourism revealed the frauds decades ago.

One of my earliest many interests of the fraud came about when I tried to determine why 19th century "synthetic division" in algebra was called "synthetic" when the technique was no more contrived than doing long division in arithmertic. The "understanding" used in doing arithmetic is no more than "rote memory" used so long and so often that it is no longer labeled as "memory tricks", but is then regarded as an "understanding". The "memory tricks" are readily apparent when a person use to using base-10 Arabic Numerals tries doing "simple" and "easily understood" calculations using Roman Numerals without taking the detour of firstly converting them to Arabic Numerals (what is MDCCCLIX times CDLXXIV???). (All the "rules of logic" are "memory tricks" too, just think of reading right-to-left versus reading left-to-right).

The movie "Rain Man" pulled the "arithmetic versus understanding" trick with making change for a $Dollar$, but using an older "Pound and Pence" system would make the "normals" no longer normals with understanding.

Trying to exploit "Prime Numbers" as displaying an "understanding" ends up revealing no more than an "understanding" of the Zodiac of rules of "rote memory" as "belief".

These issues lead to the "love/hate" relationships between philosophy and the insult of reductionism, like everything Humanity knows being reduced to long binary numbers on the internet. Sure, "Casper the Friendly Ghost" has "wisdom and deep meanings".

Tadzio

If I don't understand it, I won't remember it for longer than a few days.

Depemds on the subject.

math science- I just comprehend.
english, history, social studies- Need to do repitition and memorization

For me, I can do both. When I am studying something I'm interested in I will usually just comprehend it immediately but when I am studying something I don't care about, I have to just memorize it by rote because if I don't I'll forget as soon as I close the textbook.

My daughter has a photographic memory, so she will memorize without problems, but when she does that she forgets about the stuff easily, and if you ask her about it she does not know. If she understands the concept she will not forget. Thats whyI still study with her, and I ask her questions about the material she studied, if she did not comprehend the subject I will explain it to her until she does.