my attempt

You may be familiar with Ebbinghaus’s research on forgetting. Specifically, a graph that looks like this:

[Graph Source]

The TL;DR is that the more times you review something, the more you retain long-term. That’s why cramming may get you through a test, but you’re going to forget everything by the next semester.

So what exactly am I posting about? Well, I wanted to offer you my system for hijacking my memory systems to make sure I retain things with absolute minimum effort expended. I use this chart for all my classes (that I care about):

This is the ONLY reason I got an A in Statistical Methods II, considering I had forgotten everything from Methods I by the time I took it. Basically, just write down the section/concept/chunk of information and the date you first learned it. Then write down the next day’s date, then the date three days out from when you first learned it, then six days out from when you first learned it. I usually also pick a day before the exam/final to review each section.

As I go through the semester I check if I need to review something on a given day and then mark it off with a highlighter once I’m done. I try for maximum efficiency, usually by reading the textbook one day before the lecture (or one day after the lecture) then either doing the homework or just skimming back through my notes on day three. If I really, really, really need to understand something and I’m having trouble (like every single stats class ever) then I’ll re-write my notes on day 6 and combine the textbook + lecture notes.

Here are some other arthropod taxonomies of interest:

Ticks are just big mites (and therefore also arachnids along with spiders and scorpions)

Fireflies ARE beetles

Cicadas are basically very big planthoppers

Horseshoe crabs are very close to or are actual arachnids

ALL insects are now thought to be a subgroup of crustaceans

my masterpost | my studygram | ask me anything

[click images for high quality]

[transcript under the cut]

Other advice posts that may be of interest:

How To Study When You Really Don’t Want To

How To Do Uni Readings

Active Revision Tips

they will only cold-call if no one volunteers;

they will try to vary who it is that speaks, rather than having one person answer everything all class, so a person who volunteers will probably not be cold-called within the same class period;

the questions asked get increasingly harder the farther into the class you get, as the material gets more complicated and you get into cases near the end of the reading that people don’t remember as well.

so, if you want to have the appearance of being a gunner but also avoid being cold-called for a question you don’t know or a reading you didn’t do, volunteer an answer for a thing you actually know as early as possible, and then sit back, relax, and watch as everyone else gets cold-called for the rest of class because they’re too scared to raise their hands.

I used this trick shamelessly with my toughest cold-calling professors once I figured out the pattern and I think I only got cold-called like, once? after that. I know this sounds too easy but seriously, a lot of people will avoid raising their hands at all even if they know the answer because they’re afraid of getting it wrong or calling attention to themselves. fuck that! embrace it! and if you get it wrong, you’ve got the rest of class to watch other people fuck up even worse than you!

it works even better if you know how a specific professor likes to cold-call. like, my torts professor liked to stick with one person for a bit and ask increasingly-difficult questions about really obscure parts of the reading, like asking someone to summarize the case and then asking “where was the jewelry salesman’s wife when the jewelry was stolen out of his car?”, so when I had him again for remedies, I made sure that I anticipated that when volunteering.

my masterpost | my studygram | ask me anything | how to stop procrastinating series

[click images for high quality]

[transcript under the cut]

Other advice posts that may be of interest:

How To Study When You Really Don’t Want To

Common Study Mistakes

7 Strategies to Improve Concentration

How to Make Your Notes Aesthetic

7 Ways to Power Up Your Notetaking Strategies

The Notetaking Process

Blood drying under a microscope.

While humans have red colored blood, other organisms have blood of varying colors. Crustaceans, spiders, squid, octopi, and some arthropods have blue blood. Some types of worms and leeches have green blood. Some species of marine worms have violet blood. Insects, including beetles and butterflies, have colorless or pale-yellowish blood. The color of blood is determined by the type of respiratory pigment used to transport oxygen via the circulatory system to cells. The respiratory pigment in humans is a protein called hemoglobin found in red blood cells.

immune system: well the bacteria can’t survive outside 37 degrees for long so i thought i’d raise the temperature to kill them off!

me: 

immune system:

me: 

immune system:

me: we also can’t survive outside 37 degrees for long

immune system:

Not to get all nerdo even the though the joke was meant to make you laugh, it’s factually incorrect.

Our body creates a low-grade fever in response to a pathogen so that our red blood cells fully saturate and bind more tightly to the iron in our blood. The invading bacteria need our iron to perform metabolic activities (including reproducing) so the goal of the fever is to reduce the number of free iron molecules so that there is less available for the bacteria utilize. The bacteria will eventually be destroyed and absorbed by our immune system that way.

That's a good question, though it really highlights how little German media I consume. I feel like sometimes this blog seems to paint a full picture of me while in reality it is only a fragment of who I am. So I am not sure you'll be happy with my suggestions... since I just listen to a lot of podcasts, watch a little bit of Netflix (none of it in German) and most of the time consume a lot of sports coverage (MMA, NBA, football etc.).

Weekly podcasts in German I listen to: Gemischtes Hack (drops every Wednesday and is the most popular podcast in Germany), Talk ohne Gast (every Friday) and Baywatch Berlin (drops every Friday, though I feel like it's only enjoyable if you know Joko und Klaas and know the other two people in the podcast / or watch Klaas's show). At times I listen also to Hotel Matze, Das Coronavirus-Update von NDR Info and I want to check out Lanz & Precht but then never do...

Youtube content I at times watch: ZDF heute show, ZDF Magazin Royale, Joko & Klaas (though rarely and most of the time their earlier videos; Klaas also has his own show (Late Night Berlin)). Felix Lobrecht, the comedian from the podcast Gemischtes Hack, also has a lot of his standup on Youtube and he has his own channel.

Netflix: I've really only watched DARK and Stromberg.

Books: I mean my boys Rilke and Kafka write in German but I have not really consumed any of their works in German.

chemists will be like this is a molecule

BABY BIRDS.

surprise! being a baby bird is often like being a rude person in a Saw movie, because many species of bird practice something called Siblicide!

whiiiich, is pretty much exactly what it sounds like- the largest and strongest baby bird will gradually off its weaker siblings one-by-one, until it's the only baby left in the nest.

sometimes this happens while the parents watch, indifferent.

and sure, this sounds like something out of a horror movie, but it's an evolved trait with a genuine purpose! basically, birds have to put SO MUCH damn resources into raising chicks that it's actively detrimental to both parent birds to waste resources on a chick that's not going to thrive, so siblicide ensures that only the strongest and most viable offspring actually GET those resources, while all that the weaker offspring get is murder.

adorable!

this trait is especially common in larger bird species, which makes sense if you consider how much more resources it takes to raise a baby crane than say, a baby robin.