Saturday, July 11, 2009

Hooked on Mnemonics

Remember when the time when your biggest academic challenge was memorizing the order of the planets in the solar system?

Nowadays, I am trying to cram a billion rules--common law, majority, minority, California, commercial codes, model rules--into my head for the biggest closed-book test ever. Even if we are not supposed to know it all, we are supposed to know (memorize) a lot.

So it is back to using memorization devices from the days of elementary school. I am not a big flashcard person, but I do like mnemonic phrases. They stick. Just think of all the facts you still remember from K-12 even though it is no longer applicable in your life. Here were the ones I remembered off the top of my head:

King Phillip Came Over For Good Soup
Taxonomy: Kingdom, Phyllum, Class, Order, Family, Genus Species

My Very Education Mother Just Served Us . . . (I acutally forgot what the last two were but it all got screwed up anyway with planets changing order and taking away planetary status)
Planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (RIP)

BEAD Gum Candy Fruit
Order of Flats: BEADGCF

Every Good Boy Does Fine
Each Line on the Treble Clef: EGBDF

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally
Order of Operations: Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction

As for the bar exam, the only that I always remember is "Armadillos from Texas Play Rap, Eating Tacos," which hits all the major areas of contracts: applicable law, formation, terms, performance, remedies, excuses for non-performance, third parties. Thank you Epstein.

2 comments:

Sarah K. Brown said...

The funny thing is that there are clearly regional differences - I remember "My Very Eager Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles" and "Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge."

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on finishing the Bar Xtina!