Question: How would you make science revision more fun and interesting?

Struan Simpson answered on 9 Mar 2020:

Good question! One tip I learnt when I was in school was if you’re trying to remember a list or a sequence of things, try to turn it into a story (since you’re more likely to remember things this way!). I used to imagine I was walking into different rooms at home and try to connect something to what I was trying to remember.

For example, if I wanted to remember all the noble gas elements in the periodic table (the elements in the last column on the right hand side), I might start off by walking into my living room and noticing my voice getting all high-pitched like the air was full of helium. Then, I might walk into my kitchen and notice there were neon lights everywhere. I would imagine walking into different rooms like this until I had made up the list of items to remember.

This is a really effective way of remembering lists of things, and it can also be quite fun coming up with lists in this way and trying to find ways to link them to what you might encounter in your house! That’s just one suggestion, and there might be other/better ways of doing this, but it’s definitely more fun than just writing out a list over and over again until you remember it!