How I ranked 1st at Cambridge University - The Essay Memorisation Framework

Essay Memorization Framework Overview

• Ali, a junior doctor in Cambridge, utilized a specific essay memorization framework during the third year of a psychology degree at Cambridge University, which contributed to achieving the highest exam performance in the year group 0s.
• The framework is designed for essay-based subjects and consists of two primary stages: the creation stage and the memorization stage 42s.
• The objective of the creation stage is to develop high-quality essay plans for every potential exam question, while the memorization stage involves committing these plans to memory using active recall, spaced repetition, spider diagrams, and flashcards 42s.
• By memorizing a large volume of essay plans, students can either regurgitate prepared content if a predicted question appears or utilize the accumulated knowledge and "content blocks" to construct a high-quality essay from scratch 42s.

Selecting and Planning Essay Topics

• To determine which essay titles to prepare, students should review past exam papers to cover the breadth of the syllabus 1m35s.
• Once a student has planned essays based on past papers, they can gain enough subject expertise to predict potential new essay titles by adopting the perspective of an examiner 1m35s.
• If past papers are unavailable, students are advised to consult with teachers, professors, or lecturers to identify likely exam topics or to attempt to predict questions from the beginning of their studies 1m35s.
• The planning process requires significant cognitive effort, and a recommended approach is to allocate one day to complete each individual essay plan 2m6s.
• The number of essay plans created can increase over time; for example, the number of plans created grew from five in the first term to ten in the second term, and eventually to 35 during the Easter holidays 2m6s.

Researching and Structuring Essays

• Research for an essay begins by using Google to find information on a specific question, intentionally bypassing lecture notes and recommended reading initially 0s.
• Review articles and papers found via Google are prioritized because they often provide direct answers to essay questions 15s.
• References found within review papers are followed to gather additional material, which helps ensure the essay content is more original than work based solely on standard lecture notes 27s.
• A research document is created by copying and pasting relevant information from various sources, including links to the original material for future reference 48s.
• Once the research document is compiled, several hours are dedicated to planning and writing the essay 1m12s.
• Essay plans are structured to include an introduction, a preamble, subheadings, and evidence consolidated from books, review papers, lecture notes, and Google searches 1m20s.
• The essay writing process is constrained to a single day to leverage Parkinson's Law, which posits that work expands to fill the time allocated for its completion 1m53s.

Crafting Effective Introductions and Arguments

• A high-quality essay plan relies on three core components: structure, directly answering the question, and adding unique flair 2m3s.
• The introduction is considered the most important part of the essay because it allows the writer to demonstrate structure, relevance, and flair to an examiner who may be reading many similar scripts 2m11s.
• An effective introduction can be used to signal the quality of the entire essay to the examiner 2m18s.
• An example of an introduction involves framing the historical perspective of a topic, such as the assumption that judgments in social sciences are based on systematic evaluations of unbiased content information 2m26s.
• Research conducted over the past three decades indicates that judgments are formed based on both cognitive information and affective feelings. 0s
• Whether a judgment is cognitive or affective depends on five factors: the salience of affective feelings, the representativeness of those feelings for the target, the relevance of the feelings to the judgment, the evaluative malleability of the judgment, and the intensity of processing. 10s
• It is argued that in day-to-day life, circumstances generally lead to affective rather than cognitive decision-making. 10s
• Essay structure can be improved by using numbered points to clearly demonstrate organization to an examiner. 42s
• An effective essay introduction should explicitly state the answer to the question and provide historical context to add flair. 42s
• Essay plans are developed by researching information, compiling it into documents, and refining it into prose. 1m35s

Memorization Techniques and Content Blocks

• The memorization stage involves uploading essay plans to memory using three primary techniques: Anki flashcards, spider diagrams, and a retrospective revision timetable. 2m6s
• Anki flashcards are used to memorize every paragraph of an essay plan, including introductions and specific citations such as Bauer (1984), Damisch et al. (2006), and Ellis et al. (1997). 2m6s
• Daily use of the Anki spaced repetition algorithm during the exam period facilitates the memorization of the stored information. 2m6s
• ANKI flashcards are used to create individual "content blocks" that contain specific information, such as the details of the Russell & Fehr (1987) paper, which can be slotted into planned essays 0s.
• These content blocks provide a flexible knowledge base that allows for the inclusion of relevant research, experimental descriptions, and references even in essays that were not explicitly planned in advance 15s.

Using Spider Diagrams for Active Recall

• Spider diagrams serve as the second component of the memorization framework, acting as one-page summaries that organize the structure and keywords of an entire essay 42s.
• Each spider diagram incorporates shorthand references—such as "G Plus C 1966" for Glanzer and Cunitz (1966)—which correspond to the detailed content blocks stored in ANKI 1m15s.
• The process involves creating these diagrams for a large volume of work, covering approximately 40 to 50 essays 1m45s.
• Active recall is practiced daily by drawing out these spider diagrams from memory to identify and strengthen any areas of uncertainty 1m55s.
• When gaps in knowledge are identified during the drawing process, the master spider diagram, master essay plan, or ANKI flashcards are consulted to reinforce the information 2m15s.
• This systematic approach allows for high productivity, as demonstrated by the ability to draw out plans for approximately 15 different essays in a single day leading up to exams 2m35s.

Managing Revision with Spaced Repetition

• The final component of the essay memorization framework involves the use of systemic spaced repetition to manage study schedules 0s.
• A retrospective revision timetable is utilized to track study progress, which is organized into sections such as A, B, and C 7s.
• The process involves recording the date a specific topic is studied and logging the completion of active recall sessions for essay plans 25s.
• Each study session is color-coded—using red, yellow, or green—to indicate the level of proficiency or knowledge retained for that specific topic 42s.
• This systematic approach was applied to all essay plans and subjects within the psychology curriculum 52s.
• The framework, which incorporates active recall, spaced repetition, flashcards, and spider diagrams, was used to memorize approximately 45 to 50 different essay plans 1m15s.

Exam Performance and Strategy Application

• In the final examination, roughly two-thirds of the required essay titles (eight out of 12) were topics that had been previously planned and memorized 1m28s.
• For the remaining one-third of the essays that were new or unpredicted, the depth of subject knowledge gained through the memorization process allowed for the construction of new essays from scratch within ten minutes 1m40s.
• The exam strategy involved planning new essays using spider diagrams and utilizing content blocks from Anki flashcards to support the writing process 1m55s.
• The application of this method resulted in a joint award for best exam performance, shared with another student who achieved a slightly higher percentage score 2m10s.

Balancing Academic Work and Extracurriculars

• During the fourth, fifth, and sixth years of study, inefficient habits such as rereading and highlighting were occasionally utilized 0s.
• A retrospective revision timetable allowed for the maintenance of reasonable exam marks while simultaneously managing a business and a YouTube channel 3s.
• Efficient study techniques provide the flexibility to either dedicate significant time to achieve high academic marks or to balance academic work with extracurricular activities 15s.

Additional Resources and Content Platforms

• A dedicated page on a personal website serves as a resource for frequently asked questions and in-depth answers regarding the discussed study method 35s.
• Content regarding behind-the-scenes production and the daily life of a doctor in the UK is shared on Instagram 1m5s.
• A podcast titled "NotOverThinking," which explores topics such as happiness, creativity, and the human condition, is available at NOTOVERTHINKING.COM 1m13s.
• The YouTube channel features content covering life as a doctor, study techniques, technology reviews, productivity, and music 1m25s.