Featured Post

Welcome To How To Pass The EPPP Exam Without Even Trying! Start Here!

The EPPP is the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology.  How To Pass The EPPP Exam Without Even Trying! will teach you every...

Thursday, July 23, 2009

How To Make Effective EPPP Flashcards Using SuperMemo

Previous Article: Memorize Flashcards With SuperMemo

Make Effective EPPP Flashcards With SuperMemo



In our last article at How To Pass The EPPP Exam Without Even Trying! we discussed the details of how SuperMemo makes it possible for you to remember 96% to 99% of your EPPP flashcards indefinitely, while only requiring you to review a small fraction of the total number of your flashcards each day.

Today we will present the basic steps for making effective flashcards with the SuperMemo program. The use of flashcards is a very important component of a study plan to pass the Examination for Professional Practice in Psychology. For the purposes of learning and retaining information for the long term it is important that only small bits of information be memorized at a time. It is easier for the brain to memorize or create memory traces of small bits of information. For example, it is easier to memorize just one word in a sentence, then to memorize the entire sentence.

For this reason, make your EPPP Flashcards in the form of incomplete sentences with only the most important word left out. This word is the keyword. The keyword is the most important part of the sentence that you want to remember.
Example 1
Freud is well known for his development of the theory of the id, ego, and superego.
In Example 1 Freud is the keyword that you wish to remember.


The Question And Answer Format

In SuperMemo flashcards are automatically created in the form of a Question flashcard and an Answer flashcard.
In Example 2 we see the basic format of SuperMemo flashcards. The Question is in the form of an incomplete sentence. Notice how we have replaced the keyword in the Question with ellipses (…). The Answer is the keyword (the part you want to remember).
Example 2
Question: … is well known for his development of the theory of the id, ego, and superego.
Answer: Freud


Memorize Only One Concept Per Flashcard

One of the reasons people have difficulty memorizing EPPP study materials is that they try to memorize too much material at once. By keeping the material you want to memorize simple, such as by only trying to memorize the keyword, your memorization progress will be faster and stronger. The keyword should be the main concept that you want to memorize.



How To Memorize Multiple Concepts

Now, suppose that you also want to memorize the keyword id. You would simply create another flashcard as in Example 3.
Example 3
Question: Freud is well known for his development of the theory of the … , ego, and superego.
Answer: id
So you see, for each keyword that you wish to remember it is best to create a new EPPP flashcard for that keyword. You may end up with many flashcards of the same sentence with different keywords removed. SuperMemo has a built in feature which enables you to type the original sentence only once, then each time you select a different keyword it automatically creates a new flashcard for you. This saves a lot of typing.


Summary Of EPPP Flashcard Format

In summary, EPPP flashcards should be entered in the form of incomplete sentences using the question and answer format. Nothing could be simpler! It's like passing the EPPP exam without even trying! The use of EPPP flashcards are a very important part of your EPPP study plan to pass the EPPP exam.

Our next article at How To Pass The EPPP Exam Without Even Trying! discusses how to create the actual EPPP flashcard using the SuperMemo program software.

Update: We now recommend the use of Anki instead of SuperMemo. Anki is a program which makes remembering  things easy. Because it's a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn. Anki offers free desktop versions, as well as the ability to study on your mobile devices! Study on Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and any device with a web browser.

2 comments:

  1. The EPPP Guy welcomes your comments and questions! All will be responded to!

    ReplyDelete
  2. good morning, study guy..thanks for this site! Just found it. Have a question about how to make flashcards with Anki. Does it generate it for you, or is it necessary to pull out the material you want to memorize and construct the flash sentence yourself? thanks Mary

    ReplyDelete

Post your comments and questions here.