Rote Memorisation

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Does anyone else here have the skill of an excellent rote memory? How do you use it to your advantage?

I am gradually learning Great Britain Rail maps. Recently I drew a whole train map for a train company off by heart with all the labelled stations: this was when someone asked me how to get from East Croydon to Chichester.

Sometimes I apply my rote memory to studying, but my course requires understanding of concepts very often, so I don't use pure rote memory a huge amount with studying.

Never gave me too much advantage, except made it easier when I was in school. I can still quote "Paul Revere's Ride" to this day... well maybe only the first three stanzas anymore.

Is there any software that suits your methods of thinking, for instance to map out or to categorize concepts? Or do you use any particular style or methodology with paper or other memory aids?

I was always the first one "off-book" as a theater major in college. I can remember nearly every phone number and address I've ever had. I used to memorize speeches from plays and arias from operas just for fun when I was little.

It's hard for me to do so. However, there are things where I am good at doing this, like license plate numbers, some sports stats, those little things.

It came in handy for Spanish. Memorizing all the words and the meanings of them. It also comes in handy when you learn idioms and what they mean. It also comes in handy for choir too.

My rote memory operates in the background, storing things as itty bitty details as I come across them. I don't really try to memorize things, but when I need them, they are there a lot of the time. I would say that my rote memory is eggstremely useful in all aspects of life.

My excellent rote memorisation skills have been useful a few times on tests that required us to regurgitate information, it also used to be helpful to me in forensics (drama and debate) in high school because I memorised my scripts very fast, though it drove my teammates nuts because I memorised theirs too My sister is doing drama in high school at the moment and I'm able to help her memorise her lines easily, though I try not to make it look like I'm showing her up or anything. Most recently I memorised all fifty state capitals in about twenty minutes flat because I was bored, not terribly useful, but fun nonetheless. I can also rattle off entire scenes from films and TV programs I've seen, which makes for kind of a neat party trick. My mom gets a kick out of it.

Although i have strong memory skills, i have trouble in rote memorization particularly in areas that don't interest me.

I'm an information regurgitation extraordinare when it comes to memorizing facts for a test in school. (so obviously this has been useful for me in school in subjects that required a lot of memorization). If anyone knows of a job that requires this and ONLY this skill please tell me what it is.

I got good rote memory for concepts that I do not understand. I can use that to my advantage because it helps me in conversations, the problem is that I associate rote memorized concepts and make "strange" conjectures all the time. The problem is that if the subject matter does not interest me, it goes in one ear and out the other.

For example my friends will be talking about adding onions to a certain dish. They will discuss how it would affect the dish and I will agree or disagree with them and then proceed to tell them of other dishes I have had onion in, how they where affected and which dishes would be better suited for onions.

They will look at me like i missed the point.

Bland example but, do you guys get it?

Last edited by Mirror21 on 11 Oct 2012, 4:35 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have Inspiration 9 but I haven't made much use of it yet. I am terrible at note taking as I am extremely slow at it. Normally I just read repetitively.

me too!

Exactly! I write a few words, or a little diagram, during lectures. The notes are completely meaningless after a while, so I re-read the textbook or handouts in my own time and place, to re-write any parts of the notes that are useful for the future. I usually end up with very few notes, but the notes that I do keep fill in the gaps in my understanding of the textbook.

I never got on with mental-mapping or other visual techniques. I do find that some form of brain-storming (writing everything that comes to mind, and allowing myself to go off on tangents to those thoughts) is helpful, but I follow that with a very strict organisation into neat topics and subtopics (a tree).

I hate rote memorization, it means nothing to me.