My take on a question in Quora:

I have 4 days to memorize 400 pages. How can I do this?

If I were you, I would read to understand thoroughly all the material, rather than trying to memorise them.

What you can do further to help you navigate faster in the reading process is first, break the entire material down into:

• Core material;
• Elaborative material;

Core material comprises important concepts, principles and theories, including definitions, terminologies and nomenclatures. It also includes formulas and equations (with variables and their interrelationships) if it entails problem solving.

Generally, your exam syllabus and/or your subject syllabus should be able to guide you.

Drawing on my coaching experiences and by Pareto’s Rule, about 80% of exam questions often hail from core material.

Elaborative material refers mostly to examples, illustrations and anecdotes.

Once you have a good grasp of core material, elaborative material will often fall in nicely.

Once you have read and understood all the material, grab a large piece of butcher paper or newsprint roll, and paste it all the wall of your study room.

Using what’s is known as mindmapping, and with the aid of colour markers, transpose all your core material on to the wall paper, preferably transcribed in the form of questions.

You can make use of the question stems from the popular Journalist's Questions as a guide.

Alternatively, you can tap your past subject exam papers.

Using the centralised image and radiating branch lines, in a clockwise manner, to denote the key concept and corresponding series of sub-concepts, you can build your masterpiece based on your total memory recall of learned material.

Put your elaborative material on to sticky notes.

This “study on your two feet” initiative puts you in a simulated exam environment.

If you are already familiar with graphic organisers, like concept maps, fishbone diagrams, causal loops, Venn diagrams, etc., don’t hesitate to use them.

Upon completion of your masterpiece, do a gallery walk while doing your recap, review and reinforcement.

On a fun note, you may want to stick your masterpiece onto the ceiling of your bedroom, so as to allow you to do a final recap, review and reinforcement prior to hitting the sack.

Godspeed to you.