how to memorise an essay

How to memorise essays and long responses

Lauren Condon

Marketing Specialist at Atomi

When it comes to memorising essays or long responses for your exams, there are three big things to consider.

• Should you even try to memorise an essay?
• Do you know how to adapt your memorised response to the exam question?
• How on earth are you meant to memorise a 1,200 word essay??

It’s a lot to weigh up but we can help you out here. If you want an answer to the first question, here’s one we prepared earlier. But wait, there’s more! If you’re super keen to read more about question #2, then go ahead and click here .

And for that third point on how to actually memorise a long essay? Well, all you have to do is keep reading...

1. Break it down

Your essay/long response/creative writing piece could be anywhere between 800 and 1,200 words long. Yeah… that’s a lot. So when it comes to memorising the whole thing, it’s a lot easier to break the answer down into logical chunks and work on memorising it bit by bit.

So if you want to memorise your Discovery Essay, you might have something like this:

• Introduction
• Theme 1 with the assigned text
• Theme 1 with the related text
• Theme 2 with the assigned text
• Theme 2 with the related text

You’re going to want to memorise the paragraphs and pay attention to the structure then you can piece it all together in the exam. Having a killer structure makes it a lot easier to remember the overall bones of this situation and if you’re finding this effective, you can even break those body paragraphs down further like topic sentence > example > explanation > connection to thesis.

2. Use memory tricks

Now, there are lots of different strategies and approaches when it comes to memorising a long piece of writing. Moving in sections, you can try reading it out loud over again (slowly looking at the paper less and less) or the classic look-cover-write-check approach. If you’re really struggling, make some of your own flashcards that have the first sentence on one side and the next sentence on the back so you can test your progress.

You could also enlist the help of some creative mnemonics (memory tricks) to remind you which sentence or section needs to come next. Pick one keyword from each sentence in the paragraph and turn them into a silly sentence to help you remember the structure of the paragraph and to make sure you don’t forget one of your awesome points.

3. Play to your strengths

Not all of us are super geniuses that can just read an essay and then memorise the entire thing but we’re all going to have our own strengths. There’s going to be something whether it’s art, music, writing, performance or sport that just ‘clicks’ in your brain and this is what you want to capitalise on. So for me, I was really into debating and public speaking (hold back the jokes please) and was used to giving speeches and remembering them. So whenever I wanted to memorise a long response, I would write out the essay onto palm cards and then practice it out loud like a speech. Did it annoy my family? Yes. Was I too embarrassed to tell people my strategy? Yes. Did it work? Absolutely. 💯

Whatever your strengths are, find a way to connect them to your essay and come up with a creative way of learning your long response that will be much easier and more effective for you!

4. Start early

So you know how there’s that whole long-term/short-term memory divide? Yeah well that’s going to be pretty relevant when it comes to memorising. You’re going to have a much better chance of remembering your long response if you start early and practice it often, instead of trying to cram it in the night before… sorry.

The good news is, you still have a couple of months before the HSC so try to get your prepared response written, get good feedback from your teachers and then make it perfect so it’s ready to go for the HSC. Then, the next step is to start memorising the essay now and test yourself on it fairly regularly all the way up to your exams. This way, you have plenty of time to really lock it deep into your memory.

5. Test yourself

The final and maybe even most important step is to test yourself. And not with flashcards or the look-cover-check-repeat anymore. Once you’ve got the essay memorised pretty well, you want to spend the weeks coming up to HSC doing past questions so you can practice

• Having the essay memorised
• Being able to recall it under pressure
• Adapting it to any question so that all your hard work will actually pay off

For this to work, you really need to commit 100% to exam conditions (no cheating!) and it’s definitely worth sending those responses to your teacher to get them marked. That way, you will actually know if you’re doing a good job of remembering the core of your argument but also tailoring it perfectly to the question.

Any subject with essays or long responses can be super daunting so if you want to have a pre-written, adaptable response ready to go then it’s worth making sure you can actually memorise it for your exam. Remember to break down the essay into sections, play to your memory strengths and make sure you consistently test yourself all the way up to HSC. That should do the trick. 👌

Published on

July 28, 2017

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• Memorization Skills

Quick Ways to Memorize Long Texts and Paragraphs

Last Updated: July 8, 2024 References

Breaking the Text into Chunks

Creating a memory palace.

• Other Memorization Techniques

Expert Q&A

This article was co-authored by Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed. and by wikiHow staff writer, Jennifer Mueller, JD . Alexander Ruiz is an Educational Consultant and the Educational Director of Link Educational Institute, a tutoring business based in Claremont, California that provides customizable educational plans, subject and test prep tutoring, and college application consulting. With over a decade and a half of experience in the education industry, Alexander coaches students to increase their self-awareness and emotional intelligence while achieving skills and the goal of achieving skills and higher education. He holds a BA in Psychology from Florida International University and an MA in Education from Georgia Southern University. There are 14 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been viewed 417,903 times.

If you've ever tried to memorize an essay, monologue, long answer, or other text, you likely just repeated the words over and over again until you could recite them from rote memory. However, this isn't necessarily the quickest way to memorize something and if you're working with a longer text you may not have the time it would take to keep repeating it aloud. Instead, use memorization techniques that suit your learning style and focus on recalling the text rather than rote memorization. [1] X Research source

Best Ways to Remember Long Text and Paragraphs

To memorize long passages, break the text into smaller chunks and practice them separately. When you're confident with one chunk of text, combine it with the next chunk of text and recite them again. Keep adding new chunks of text until you have it completely memorized.

• For example, if you're trying to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, your first chunk might be the first line of the speech, in which Lincoln talks about the founding of the United States. The second chunk might relate to Lincoln's description of the civil war, then the third to the battlefield Lincoln was consecrating that day. Despite being separate chunks, the second and third chunks make up the same paragraph. [3] X Research source
• Look for phrases you already know that you won't have to work as hard to commit to memory. For example, if you already remember the phrase "four score and seven years ago" from the Gettysburg Address, you don't need to worry about memorizing that.
• Sometimes it can also help to reformat the text. You might hand-write or type the text out with plenty of space between the chunks. You might even include separate headings for each of the chunks.

• Get a good familiarity with each of the chunks separately before you start to combine them. If there is a particular area of your original chunk that's giving you trouble, try separating it into even smaller chunks. Then you can combine those smaller chunks together once you've got them down.

• Practice the first and second chunk together until you can recite them flawlessly. Then you're ready to add the third chunk.

• If you run into rough spots, stop and go back over them until you can recite them smoothly. Then integrate that part into the rest of the chunk.
• Throughout the process, keep your eye out for transitions that you can use as triggers to combine the chunks together seamlessly. If these transitions aren't in the text, add them mentally to help you connect the chunks — just remember not to say them out loud.

• It's often easiest to use your home, since you're intimately familiar with the rooms and the objects inside.
• Your place can also be a fictitious place that you're deeply familiar with. For example, if you're a big fan of Harry Potter and have a familiar map in your head of Hogwarts, you could use that.
• Your "memory palace" doesn't have to be a single building or location. It can also be a route from one place to another. For example, you might use your route from home to work or school.

• For example, if you're trying to memorize Hamlet's soliloquy, you might imagine a letter "B" on the door of a room. When you open the room, there are arrows and slingshots pelting you from a large bag of gold coins. If you close the door and move down the hall, there are arms reaching out that grab you and carry you across a turbulent ocean. [8] X Research source

• If you encounter pieces that are difficult to remember, you may want to rethink the object you have associated with that piece or break it up into smaller pieces associated with multiple objects.

• This technique may take some practice to master. If you're up against a deadline, it may not be the best time to create a memory palace. However, once you've used it a few times, you may find it enables you to memorize text more quickly.
• If you used a route rather than a place, you can travel through the text you're trying to memorize every day as you head to work or school. You could even try it in reverse as you go back home. Then you'd be able to say you know the text "backward and forward."

Trying Other Memorization Techniques

• For example, if you were trying to memorize Hamlet's soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet, you would write "t b, o n t b? t i t q — w 't n i t m t s t s a a o o f, o t t a a a s o t, a, b o, e t?" [11] X Research source Then you would see how many words you could get just from those first letters.
• Circle the letters that correspond to words you couldn't remember and then go back to the text. Use your favorite memorization technique to better commit those words to your memory in the context of the text, then try the first letters again.
• This trick is also useful if you're trying to recall something you memorized a long time ago but haven't thought about since. You might be surprised how much you'll recall.

• If you're musically inclined, you could try recording yourself playing the song. You may also be able to find an instrumental version of the song on your favorite streaming service.
• Educational programs, such as "Schoolhouse Rock," often create songs for historical documents and speeches. Search the internet or your favorite video streaming service and see what you can find.

• Feel free to gesticulate as well to really get into the emotion of the text. The more passion and emotion you attach to it, the better you'll be able to remember it.

• For example, if you were trying to memorize Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, you might think of an image of your father, an image of the United States, an image of the Statue of Liberty, and an equal sign to represent the first line: "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
• If you enjoy emoji, you might try "translating" the text into emoji. Since those images are already familiar to you, it might make the text easier to remember.

• If you dislike the sound of your own voice, you can always get someone else to read the text for you. However, you'll get less of a benefit by listening to someone else's voice than you would if you listened to your own voice.
• If you're trying to memorize a relatively famous text, you may also be able to find recordings online of famous actors or other celebrities reading the text.

• Once you've found a method that works for you, practice it by memorizing speeches, monologues, or essays that spark your interest. The more you practice memorizing things, the better you'll get. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• After you've memorized something, make an effort to recite it at least once every few days so it sticks in your memory. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

Tips from our Readers

• Try recording your own voice saying the text and play it back to yourself. After listening to it, practice saying it along with the recording.
• If you are learning a script, then try learning the other lines in between yours so that you can remember your cues.
• Try and write down a "spark word" from a section that helps trigger the memory of what the section is about.

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://www.backstage.com/magazine/article/backstage-experts-answer-ways-quickly-memorize-lines-6719/
• ↑ https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/teaching-strategies/chunking
• ↑ http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm
• ↑ https://psychcentral.com/lib/memory-and-mnemonic-devices/
• ↑ https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-psychology/chapter/step-1-memory-encoding/
• ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4056179/
• ↑ https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/56965/speech-to-be-or-not-to-be-that-is-the-question
• ↑ https://learningcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/enhancing-your-memory/
• ↑ http://www.productivity501.com/how-to-memorize-verbatim-text/294/
• ↑ https://poets.org/poem/hamlet-act-iii-scene-i-be-or-not-be
• ↑ https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2017/10/20/want-to-remember-something-better-put-it-in-a-song/
• ↑ https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/7-easy-monologue-memorization-tips/
• ↑ Alexander Ruiz, M.Ed.. Educational Consultant. Expert Interview. 18 June 2020.
• ↑ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09658211.2017.1383434

About This Article

To memorize a long text in the shortest time possible, start by splitting it into 1-2 sentence sections to make it easier to remember. Read the first section a few times. Then, cover the page and practice recalling the section from memory. You can say it aloud, in your head, or write it down on a new piece of paper. Once you’ve memorized the first section, move onto the next one. Whenever you start a new section, say or write the text from the beginning so you learn the flow between each section. Repeat the process until you’ve learned all of the sections of your text. For more tips, including how to memorize text by using pictures for each section, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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12 proven techniques to memorise an essay fast.

Proficiency in memorising is an essential ability for professionals and students. It helps students remember and retain information more easily, which improves academic performance. Effective essay memorisation significantly enhances academic and professional performance by enabling students to confidently and easily recall complex knowledge.

However, an essay might be difficult to memorise, particularly if there is a small timeframe. In addition, if you still need to write your essay and you have to memorise it too within a short deadline, it will be really difficult for you.  In such a situation, the best solution is to acquire  help with your essay  from experts so that you can invest your time in memorising. At the same time, professionals will write a comprehensive paper.  

Moreover, with proper techniques, you'll be amazed at how fast and simple it is to learn an essay. You'll be able to recall crucial information, quotes, and facts with e ase. Put aside last-minute rushing and use these tips to help you memorise your essay. 

How to Memorise an Essay Fast? 12 Proven Techniques

Like many other students, you may have tried to memorise an essay by rewriting notes, underlining material, and listening to lectures for numerous hours. However, what if you could assess a more successful and efficient method? 

The proven methods in this article can help you reach your objectives, whether you're a professional trying to improve your information retention ability or a student trying to raise your gr ades. Take the following strategies into action to discover the wonders and rapid essay memorisation. To help students memorise an essay fast, here are 12 proven techniques:

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Let’s continue reading about these core tricks in more detail.

1. Break Down the Essay into Chunks

One of the best strategies for memorisation of an essay is to divide it into manageable sections. This strategy enables you to concentrate on particular essay portions, which facilitates memorisation. You can set up an intellectual framework that will aid in the retention of the information by breaking the essay into smaller chunks.

Breaking an essay up into smaller pieces is great for several reasons.

You can remember the material much more efficiently if you focus on bite-sized portions.

By breaking the essay down into smaller portions, it's no longer so overwhelming to research an entire article by heart.

You can be greatly assured that you will not forget the complete essay as every phase is familiar.

By using this method to help you memorise an essay, you may quickly become proficient at it.  Ensure that you are ready up for exams, presentations, and different situations in which memorisation is necessary.

2. Create a Mind Map

A mind map is a diagram drawn in radial mode (tree-like) around one concept instead of drawing an idea from left to right like an o utline. It is an effective method for brainstorming, structuring and linking thoughts and a perfect strategy to memorise an essay in 10 minutes.

Use these steps to make a mind map for essay memorisation:

Start with your primary idea.

Include important ideas and subtopics.

Employ visual components.

Arrange and link thoughts.

Examine and improve it.

Benefits of Mind Mapping for Essay Memorisation

There are several advantages of using mind maps to help with essay memorisation:

Your ability to retain and recall information improves as you encode your thoughts in a more meaningful visual format.

Through spatial linkages or visual features, you can quickly generate a lot of strong links between concepts.

Mind maps provide a great summary and structure to read the article with one concise layout.

Since these maps can be made easily, they are perfect for cramming/last-minute study.

3. Use Mnemonics

Mnemonics are an excellent memory-boosting technique that works especially well for memorising an essay in 30 minutes rapidly. By linking unfamiliar knowledge with something you already know, students can help themselves remember the new information. Students can encode information in a more significant and memorable way by using mnemonics, which makes it possible for them to quickly commit an article to memory.

How to Apply Mnemonics to Essay Memorisation

Following are the ways to apply mnemonics in memorising an essay:

Figure out the important information and supporting facts for the essay.

Based on the essay topic and your tastes, pick the best mnemonic.

Create the mind map, rhyme, acronym, or chain of associations that will aid in your retention of the important details.

You also need to recite that mnemonic over and over in your head. The more you practise, the better your brain will be at recalling it fast.

Review the essay to confirm that your mnemonic appropriately brings out the topic.

The advantages of using mnemonics to help in essay memorisation are as follows.

Increased determination

Shorter study sessions 

More self-assurance

You can increase your general learning efficiency and quickly memorise an essay by using mnemonic devices in your study sessions.

4. Repetition and Re-Reading

 When it involves memorising, the best way to memorise an essay is repetition and re-reading. This approach involves repeatedly studying and re-analysing the essay a couple of times to bring it to mind. Here are some key factors to remember:

Repetition allows you to create memories, where your brain and body end up familiarised with the phrases and terms, making it simpler to recall them.

Re-studying the essay more than one time enables your brain to recognise styles and connections among ideas, making it easier to bear in mind.

The more you study the essay, the greater familiarity you end up with the content, which boosts your self-belief and decreases anxiety.

How to Implement Repetition and Re-Reading?

Following are the strategies to implement repetition and re-reading:

Establish a timetable.

Begin with small chunks.

Make use of active recall.

Change up your surroundings.

5. Summarise and Paraphrase

There are two particularly effective strategies for swiftly memorising essays: summarising and paraphrasing. These techniques have been shown to improve recall and retention, enabling students to quickly retain complex material in memory.

To properly summarise a piece of writing, take the subsequent actions:

Determine the main idea after reading.

Divide the essay into three sections: introduction, main body and conclusion.

Determine the key points in every section.

Use bullet points to summarise the essay’s main themes.

Make sure you exactly and effectively deliver the main thoughts of the unique essay by going over and editing it.

How to Paraphrase an Essay?

To correctly paraphrase an essay, take the following moves:

Determine the most important concepts and essential details through closely studying the source text.

Determine the writer's language, tone, and fashion.

Rewrite the content in your own words by making  use of different sentence styles and synonyms.

Ensure the message and tone of the text you've paraphrased continue to be equal.

To ensure your paraphrase is correct and clear, go back and edit it.

Remember, you can develop a powerful memorisation strategy that strengthens your comprehension of the situation. You can also get in touch with  reliable essay writers in the UK  to proofread and edit your essay so that you can memorise an error-free document. 

6. Teach Someone Else

An excellent strategy for rapidly and effectively memorising an essay is the "Teach Someone Else" method. Using this technique, you describe the essay to someone else as though you were imparting knowledge. This method makes use of the psychological concept of active recall, which states that information is actively recalled from memory as opposed to being simply reread.

How Does it work?

Assign a friend, member of your family, or even a toy animal to the role of "student."

Act as even though you are teaching them the essay, going over the important thoughts, and arguments, and assisting details in your words.

While instructing, make an effort to remember the material without consulting your notes or the source text.

Make an effort to translate difficult concepts into plain, understandable language.

Encourage your "student" to ask questions so that you can both figure out what you don't grasp and where you need to practise more.

You can rapidly and efficiently memorise an article and remember the content for a long time by employing the "Teach Someone Else" technique. Students, professionals, and everyone else try to enhance their learning and retention abilities with this strategy. 

7. Use Flashcards

 Flashcards are a genuine technique for brief memorisation, and they could significantly improve essay memorisation. Students, experts, and those who need plenty of information to reminiscence will find this approach especially beneficial. You can successfully devote the essays to your long-term memory through the use of flashcards.

To create an effective flashcard, you should:

Divide the essay into its major points.

Make flashcards by writing essential words or phrases on one aspect and the relevant data on the alternative. 

Use clean, succinct language and concentrate on the most crucial ideas.

Sort the flashcards into sections or categories.

8. Record and Listen

Essay memorisation is probably difficult, mainly if there is not plenty of time to complete the task. Nonetheless, it is possible to perform it quickly and efficaciously with the suitable method. The "Record and Listen" technique is one such approach that is powerful in assisting students to rapidly memorise anything.

To maximise the advantages of this technique, ensure to:

Record a peaceful video of yourself.

Make sure to pay close attention to the tone and tempo of your recording.

Make detailed notes while focusing, paying attention to important aspects and ideas.

Repeat the recording process a couple of times, focusing on key aspects of your writing each time.

You can boost your comprehension and delivery of your essay by recording and listening to it. This will help you learn the essay without problems. Try it out and have a look at how it affects your academic performance!

9. Use Visualisation Techniques

College students can greatly enhance their potential to use efficient visualisation techniques that can help them learn an essay. This technique makes use of the mind's tendency to react to visible stimuli, which makes it beneficial for quick memorising.

The process of visualisation entails gathering up photos of the thoughts that are connected to specific facts, ideas, or arguments. Your mind establishes a robust association between the intellectual picture and the related statistics while you visualise those pictures.

Students can easily retrieve the content by creating a strong mind map of their essays with regular practice. Try visualisation and discover how powerful visual learning can be!

10. Create a Story

Exam preparation may be quite difficult, particularly when it comes to writing an extended essay. Another amazing  method that is quite successful in helping people quickly memorise an essay is the "Create a Story" method.

To use this approach, one needs to craft a story that includes the essay's major ideas. This method is based on the fact that tales are less difficult for the human mind to remember than discrete information. 

However, if it seems difficult to you to create a story out of your essay due to a heavy academic workload, you can  purchase your essays  from  essay writing companies   in the UK. Such companies have experts who write a winning document for you. So, you would have enough time to memorise it easily. 

11. Listen to Music

Even though memorising an essay can be difficult, listening to music while you work will help you remember and retain the information far better. This method, called the "Mnemonics of Music," makes use of the brain's innate love of melody and rhythm to encode information in a way that is more captivating and remembered. People can better connect an essay to their memory by using music that appeals to their auditory and visual learning types.

How Music Enhances Memorisation?

The sense of familiarity generated by music’s repetitive melodies and rhythmic patterns helps students recall information.

Music helps stimulate emotions, which ultimately assists memory development.

Due to its ability to stimulate both visual and auditory processing, music enables people to encode information using several senses.

This novel method can be the fastest way to memorise an essay for professionals, learners, and anybody else trying to get better at memorising.

12. Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is a highly useful approach that is often disregarded when it comes to memorising an essay. Even though it can seem paradoxical, sleep is a vital part of the learning process since it helps with memory consolidation. 

Here are the reasons why you need to prioritise your sleep:

Sleep reduces stress and anxiety and enhances memory, organisation, and retention by enabling the brain to absorb and organise information. Prioritise getting enough sleep as part of your study schedule to reach your academic goals and realise your full potential.

How Many Hours Does It Take to Memorise an Essay?

It will take 2 hours to learn a 600-word essay. However, if you have a day, it is even better. On the other hand, to learn a 1000–1100-word essay, you need to have five to six hours. 

Can you Memorise an Essay in One Night?

Memorising an essay depends on the total word count and the complexity of the topic. One can easily do it overnight by following a few tips and tricks. Although there are countless strategies for memorising, the simplest technique is the true mixture of practice and repetition.

How to Memorise a 100-Page Essay in One Night?

Make sure that you have no commitments, appointments, shopping plans or any other activity on that day.

Work hard and stay in the distraction-free zone.

Break an essay into 25-page sections.

Read the twenty-five pages for two hours. Disconnect for less than an hour. Get the next twenty-five pages done in two hours. Take a second break. 

Continue with the next 25 pages, take a short break and repeat to reach page 100.

The secret to swiftly memorising an essay is to approach the process strategically and purposefully. By implementing these techniques into your revision routine,  you may keep your essay in long-term memory and retrieve it when you need it. St udents who use proven techniques mentioned in this article can memorise their essays and give a self-assured and well-spoken presentation. These strategies will undoubtedly assist you in reaching your objectives, whether you're a professional trying to impress your readers or a student hoping to ace an exam. 

With these techniques under your belt, you'll be well on your way to achieving your objectives and realising your full potential. Moreover, you’ll feel more assured about your capacity to recall material easily. Thus, start now and experience the life-changing potential of quickly learning an essay by heart. A well-memorised essay could be all that stands between you and success!

Chris Bates

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Memorising English Essays!

Elyse Popplewell

Monday 28th, March 2016

When it comes to memorising English essays… well… I memorised every single one of my English essays for both Advanced and Extension 1.

Shock. Horror.

Now I want to tell you my techniques to help you with memorising your English essays.

HSC Markers, tutoring institutions, your peers, your teachers – they all have an opinion on memorising English essays. The argument against memorising English essays is that your response may seem detached from the question asked in an exam. Fear not! It is definitely not impossible to get really high marks with a memorised essay. In fact, I credit my mark of band 6 in Advanced English and E4 in Extension 1 English to my prepared essays. Memorising English essays isn’t easy, but I found it to be very worth it!

What are the benefits of memorising English essays?

When you enter an exam room, you are expected to write something that is quite lengthy, quite analytical, with sophisticated language, with plenty of evidence, quite quickly. Preparing an essay – whether this is fully memorised or just partially – ensures that you are meeting the required length, writing quickly, using sophisticated language, being analytical and giving plenty of evidence. You can prepare all of these things! Except, the pace of writing. Hopefully adrenaline is your friend in an exam. All that’s left for you to do? Think clearly and make a thorough effort to incorporate the essay question seamlessly.

My experience of memorising English essays

First of all, I want to tell you the level of memorising and planning I did for two different essays so you can see how it really isn’t as simple as memorising an essay then throwing it on an exam paper. Each module requires something different of you, so I prepared each essay differently. It is also worth noting that what you’re about to read is my level of preparation for the FINAL exams. The entire HSC year was spent preparing, changing, adding to, editing, re-reading, re-writing, occasionally screaming at and often ferociously scribbling all over my essays. The entire HSC year is an opportunity to continually improve your work. It wasn’t until days before my HSC exams that I felt like I had essays that were both strong and versatile enough to confidently take into my exams with me.

Area of Study:

You can download my Area of Study essay for free here.

Introduction: Completely memorised.

This includes the thesis statements, the way I would introduce the texts and the sentence I would use to complete the introduction and tie it all together. My first two thesis sentences were broad enough that I could integrate the essay question easily. Else, I could give the essay question its own sentence. The essay question is all I had to embed here. This is the easy part.

Body Paragraphs: Completely memorised.

I had the introduction to each paragraph planned. I knew all textual references off by heart and their accompanying analysis and technique(s). The only part that I had to change was consciously incorporating the essay question. My evidence and original thesis statements were broad enough that this wasn’t difficult to do. However, I was so confident in knowing my texts that I could whip out extra textual referencing that supported the essay question very easily.

Conclusion: Prepared but not memorised.

The conclusion should never be undermined. It needs to be strong and it needs to tie everything you’ve said together really well. This is why I was comfortable writing it on the spot and not from memory: everything I needed to say in it had already been said above in the essay. All I had to do now was make sure that I had coherently linked everything and I was leaving the marker with a taste of just how much I know about discovery!

You can read my module essay for free  here.

Introduction: Prepared but not memorised.

I had a “sentence bank” built up from the various assessment I had done on Module A throughout the year. This meant that I knew a couple of good, universal phrases, sentence and words that I could easily whip out and apply at any moment. I knew how I wanted to open, I wanted to talk about the inaccessibility of Shakespeare to a modern audience (I studied King Richard III and Looking for Richard). From then, it was going to be totally directed by the essay question.

Body paragraphs: Prepared but not memorised.

I had quite a few pieces of evidence that were direct scene-to-scene comparisons between Shakespeare’s work and Pacino’s. I made sure that as many of these textual references as possible were UNIVERSAL. This is the key to picking quotes. They should be able to be used to apply to many different arguments. I used mnemonics here (discussed further on).

Conclusion: Pretty well off-the-cuff.

As I mentioned in the AOS conclusion: this part is so much a summary of everything above. If you remember everything to discuss above then you will not have a problem when it comes to the conclusion. Keep it strong, keep it sweet, don’t over think it. Don’t undermine it either.

The methods that I used to memorise English essays!

Re-writing. Writing again. I do this when I can’t spell a word properly (for so long, plagiarism was this ridiculous word that I could spell) and when I need to remember something word for word. I must have written out a total of 40+ quotes to be memorised during the HSC at least the length of a page each. I would continually write out every single word of the quote so that I would memorise it. By the end, I wouldn’t even have to check the sentence above, I would be writing the quote straight from my mind. That is the sweet sign of success.This technique can be used for the less specific as well. I used it for thesis statements and quotes extensively. However, there were times when I wanted to write out my essay in a timed situation at home to make sure that I could write it out in the designated time the exam gives. Even though practicing in exam conditions at home is my most loathed study technique (it was just so boring L ), the truth is that it helps to memorise things. It is truly testing your memory, but in a pressured environment. Sometimes, in both these practice exams and in real exams, the words don’t come to you. You forget. They disappear in the black hole of your mind. Whatever words do come to mine, grab them, and run with them. You can’t let yourself fall into the trap of being completely reliant on memorising. You have to be confident in giving your essay the flexibility to deal with a brain malfunction.

Mnemonics. I <3 mnemonics. If you aren’t sure what they are, I’ll give you an example. I need to remember the following: Metaphor, Symbolism, onomatopoeia, bildungsroman, pathetic fallacy. But, that’s awkward and boring to remember. So instead I take the first letters from each: M, S, O, B, P. Then I make a silly little sentence: Mary slipped over banana peels. This is far more entertaining to remember than the technique’s names themselves. When you know the first letter, you will be sure to recall the technique you are supposed to write about! There are a bunch of mnemonic generators online too! I used mnemonics for nearly all of my prepared body paragraphs!

Speaking out loud. When I had no choice but to commit something to memory and I didn’t have a lot of time, I’d recite it old-school style. I’d stand in front of my mirror with the work I have to remember. Then I’d talk. Out loud. Over and over again. I’d be sure to walk around as much as possible to trick my body into thinking I was doing something stimulating and to keep the blood flowing. I’d say things in funny voices and then in silly accents. When it came to memorising my creative writing (a speech) I took on the persona of my oppressed narrator and I’d do the damsel-in-distress thing as I read my work over and over.You get to a stage where just reading it no longer is helping. This is when you need to read the sentence and say it out loud, and then cover it, and read it out loud from memory. Slowly build up a sentence at a time. If I had a week before my exam, I would make sure I memorised at least a paragraph each night so that by the day before, I had every little bit memorised and tested!

Organic memorising. As I mentioned above, I didn’t have my essays completely memorised for all stages of the year. By the HSC exams, I was ready! Part of this was because of all of the above techniques and part of it was just organic. By submitting my work to a teacher, receiving feedback, toying with it, putting it away and getting it out again and just being present and interacting with my work, it became memorised. Perhaps it wasn’t memorised in the word-for-word sense through organic interaction alone. However, it was definitely leaving an important print in my mind that subconsciously lingered until I whipped it out in an exam.

Recording myself saying it – then playing it. Now, you can choose to make this really creepy and play it overnight so that you fall asleep to the tender sound of your own voice. Some people swear by this. For me, it was a little invasive. My sleep during the HSC was paradisiacal and was never ever going to be compromised for any reason (priorities). I recorded myself on my phone and played it as I was driving to school. Rather than listening to chatter on the radio, I would listen to my recording and try to speak along with it wherever possible. If you catch the bus or train, you could also listen then! You could listen in the shower, while you make lunch or as you clean the dishes. Easy!

Making the essay forever present. I used this not just for entire essays, but also for random facts that I needed to know for different subjects (dates for history, legislation for legal, etc). I put my work in a plastic sleeve and stuck it to the outside of the shower door. This way, I could get all kinds of clean while reading my essay out loud. I stuck things that I needed to memorise at the end of the bath tub, on the back of the toilet door, on the wall that I face when I eat breakfast. It sounds crazy and it sounds intense. But, I truly believe that it is so effective to have whatever you are trying to memorise everpresent. These are the kinds of things that you subliminally take note of even when you aren’t actively studying. Studying without actually studying? Always a win!

Want a little more help studying for English?

If you’re not really the English type, click here.

If you want some tips and tricks for studying for English in general – have a look here!

Is it really effective to memorize essays for exams?

Yes, memorizing essays can be very effective. It allows you to write quickly and coherently under pressure, using sophisticated language and relevant evidence. Having a well-structured essay ready helps ensure you meet the required length and depth for high marks.

How can I avoid sounding robotic when using memorized essays?

To avoid sounding robotic, ensure your thesis statements and evidence are flexible enough to adapt to different questions. Practice embedding the specific essay question into your memorized material and engage actively with the question during the exam to make your response feel more personalized.

What’s the best way to structure my memorized essays?

Start with a strong introduction that includes your thesis and outlines main points. Memorize key arguments and evidence for body paragraphs but keep your phrasing adaptable. Conclude with a coherent summary that ties everything together, making it easier to write spontaneously.

How should I choose quotes and evidence to memorize?

Select universal quotes that can support multiple arguments and essay prompts. This versatility will help you pivot your analysis based on the specific question while still providing strong support for your claims.

What techniques do you recommend for memorizing essays?

Effective techniques include rewriting key sections, using mnemonics for important terms, reciting essays aloud, and recording yourself. These methods reinforce memory and enhance recall, especially when practiced in different settings.  

Should I memorize my entire essay word-for-word?

It’s not necessary to memorize every word. Focus on key arguments and the overall structure while allowing for flexibility in wording to adapt to the essay question.

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How To Study: The Essay Memorisation Framework

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As a medical student, I did have to undertake some exams that required writing essays. One of the questions I often get asked is how you can apply techniques such as active recall and spaced repetition – that I frequently discuss as being ‘the best’ revision techniques – to essay-based subjects. During my third year at university, I adopted the following approach to preparing for my own essay-based psychology exams – it proved highly effective in my own exams and I hope that you can make effective use of it too.

The system can be broadly broken down into two stages:

• The Creation Stage
• Objective to create first class essay plans for every conceivable essay title that they throw at us in the exam.

2.  The Memorisation Stage

• Objective of committing all of these essay plans to memory by systematically using active recall, spaced repetition, spider diagrams and flashcards.

The idea is that, by using these two stages, by the time the exams arrive you’ll have memorised so many essay plans that they will either come up in the exam or the essays will be similar enough that you will have the knowledge to draw up and form coherent and well-structured essay that answer the question effectively.

Creation Stage

There are three main questions in the creation stage:

How to decide what essay titles to pick/prepare

The objective here is to ‘scope the subject’ and find essay titles that cover the entire breadth of the syllabus. The easiest way to do this is to both look through the past papers and start by planning the essays that have come up in the past and then examine the syllabus and identify areas that lend themselves to essays. Once you’ve planned out those essays, you’ll have a better idea as to what style of questions are asked and what material is often covered. This should give you a breadth of essays titles that span the course – if you find that there is still an area of the syllabus that hasn’t been address, try to come up a suitable question and add it to your essay plans to compile.

How you plan the essay

Personally, I would give myself one day per essay plan. Although it’s best to try to have this process ongoing throughout the year, I did the bulk of my essay plan preparation in the Easter holidays (perhaps not ideal!).

My process involved starting off with a question then use Google to get as much information as possible about that particular topic. I would start off with Google because it can give you a good broad overview as well as useful links to review papers that would often provide key details or interesting examples.

Once I had created my essay plan I would then look at the lecture notes and the recommended reading. This meant that a lot of my material was more original than everyone else’s because most other people would’ve built their essays based around the lecture notes, whereas I was building my essays from a Google search supplemented by lecture notes.

Once I had got my research document, I would spend a few hours writing out the essay – consolidating all the information into this one essay that I am ultimately going to learn.

How you make sure your essay plan is really good.

But how do we make an essay plan good? There are 3 key ingredients in my opinions:

• Answering the question
• Adding a bit of spice.

The introduction is the most important part of the essay because you can address all three of these key ingredients and signal to the examiner how you are going to go about compiling the essay and answer the question.

Here is an example of one of the introductions from an essay that I prepared on whether judgement and decision making is cognitive (logical) or affective (emotional).

The historical view in the social sciences has always been that judgements are based solely on content information, with individuals being assumed to form judgements by systematically evaluating all available content information in an unbiased manner. However, over the past three decades a considerable amount of research has challenged this assumption by showing that judgments may be formed not only on the basis of content information (cognitive judgements) but also on the basis of feelings (affective judgement). It is now well accepted that judgement can be both affective and cognitive. Whether it is one or the other depends on a multitude of factors: (1) the salience of the affective feelings, (2) the representativeness of the affective feelings for the target, (3) the relevance of the feelings for the judgement, (4) the evaluative malleability of the judgement and (5) the level of processing intensity. I will discuss these in turn and ultimately argue that generally speaking in day-to-day life, the circumstances are generally those that result in affective rather than cognitive judgements and decision making.

As you can see, I signpost the essay explicitly using numbered points as well as answering the question and outlining to the examiner the direction that my argument is going to go.

The Memorisation Stage

By this point, you should have a good number of essay plans that you’ve created in documents – now the aim is to ‘upload’ those essay plans to our brain. I approached doing this using three main techniques:

Anki Flashcards

With my essays, I used Anki flashcards to memorise paragraphs and main points whether from an essay or key points from a particularly relevant research paper. The aim was to create blocks of content with every Anki flashcard being its’ own ‘block’ which I could then draw upon either for the essays that I had planned or for unfamiliar essays but ones which I could answer using the material from the flashcards.

However, specific paragraphs or points from research papers aren’t helpful unless you can associate them with particular essays – that’s where spider diagrams come into the equation…

Spider Diagrams

Having memorised content blocks from my essays using Anki flashcards, I made one page diagrams of every single essay. The idea being that you would be able to discern the structure of the essay through the spider diagram as well as notice key words that are relevant for that topic and/or that you find particularly helpful in triggering your memory about the key points that you need to raise in answering that question.

Every day I would draw out various spider diagrams from memory and if there were any books that I didn’t know, I would look them up in the master research document or in Anki and actively work on learning those parts.

Over time, this became a highly effective way to systematically use active recall to ensure that I knew absolutely everything.

Retrospective Revision Timetable

The final part of the system involved systematic spaced repetition. If you’ve seen any of my other content, I am a big proponent of retrospective revision timetables. This approach counters the conventional idea of planning a prospective revision timetable which has a number of issues – namely trying to predict the future and inflexibility, amongst others – and instead involves creating a spreadsheet that starts with a list of subjects, topics or essays that we have compiled through scoping our subject and then inputting the dates on which we study those areas as well as colour code the system to provide a visual representation as to which areas we might need to cover again. You can read more about these sorts of timetables  here , where I explain them in more depth.

This structure which combines active recall, spaced repetition, flashcards and spider diagrams was probably the most effective system that I used whilst at university. In the exam, about two thirds of the essays that we had to write, I had already planned. Although the other four essays that I had to write were ‘new’, I had built up such a systematic and in-depth knowledge of the subject that I could more easily draw upon ‘blocks’ of content from my Anki decks which I could then ‘drop’ into these essays to answer them effectively.

I hope this has provided you with a more logical structure with which to utilise active recall, spaced repetition, spider diagrams and flashcards to ensure that you can approach your essay-based exams with more confidence.

Please see the other blog posts in this ‘How To Study’ series for more hints, tips and guidance on studying and revising.

About The Author

I'm an ex-doctor turned YouTuber, Podcaster, entrepreneur and author. I've been creating YouTube videos for over 7 years and have a following of over 4 million over on my main channel.

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How to memorise English Essays effectively and adapt them to ANY question

Struggling to see how you'll write a whole essay in only 40 minutes? Not sure whether you should memorise an essay or go in blind? We got you! Here's our fool proof step-by-step guide to memorise essays that you can adapt to ANY question.

9 months ago   •   4 min read

Should I have a pre-written English Essay?

The answer to this is yes and no. NO you should not know have only one essay mindlessly memorised word for word that you just regurgitate back onto the page. But YES you do want to have several essay plans with quotes and analysis imprinted in the back of your head that you can call upon under pressure.

If you’re memorising an essay word for word, you’re giving yourself no room to adapt. Subsequently, your essay won't be relevant to the question, rendering all your hard work futile. Furthermore, you won't be able to tackle curveball questions that they are known to give, asking you to reference a certain theme or even worse, a certain scene or character.

In essence, you want to have a few template essays that you can quickly mould to perfectly fit any question.

What you should be doing

Step 1. form opinions and ideas about the text.

First is to actually have a thorough understanding of the text you are studying. Most importantly you need to be able to formulate original arguments and opinions regarding the essay.

I recommend starting by finding three practice essay questions and just having a think about how you would approach answering them. What themes or characters would you maybe reference? Where do you stand with the question, do you agree or disagree and why?

This will give you an idea about which themes or aspects of the text interest you and you can focus your analysis down on that.

Step 2. Study by theme

Pick four themes to focus your study efforts on. These themes will make the basis of your essays. Try to pick themes that somewhat relate together so that you can form a cohesive argument.

For example, you believe the composer uses their text to expose the fragility of human motivations by exploring notions of love and pride. You are examining two separate themes but they lead to the same argument, human motivations can be easily manipulated or changed.

For each of your four themes have a set of quotes and their analysis memorised. Even better, memorise a few possible topic sentences that you could pair up with these quotes.

Step 3. Break it down

Once you've collected your themes and quotes it's time to see how they all piece together in an essay. Find a practice essay question and spend some time creating a well-crafted essay. This will test how well your quotes and analysis work in an argument to an essay question.

When you finish try to get feedback on your work from either a teacher or tutor. You want this essay to be as well written as possible because this will form the base for future essays.

Once you are happy with your essay deconstruct it. This could be by highlighting key bits of analysis and quotes or turning them into dot-point summaries - chuckable portions that are easy to memorise. I found the best way was to use a table but you can experiment with what works for you (flowcharts, flashcards, dot points). By deconstructing it like this you aren't mindlessly memorising an essay word for word but actively visualising the inner workings of your words and imprinting key ideas into your mind.

Below are some examples of how you can format it. You will want to customise it based on the type of essay or module you are tackling.

Step 4. Practice, Practice, Practice...

This last step is the most important. Although it seems time-consuming and quite a pain, the only way to train your brain for under-pressure essay adaption is to write essays over and over again until it becomes instinct.

Use your above planner to do another practice essay under timed conditions and see how you go. You may find yourself short on time and struggling to compose your ideas. You may even come to find your first essay plan is rigid and your themes don't at all work with this new question. No biggie, go looking for some new quotes to add to your essay planner and edit your ideas to make them more adaptable.

Once you finish that essay, you guessed it, you'll attempt another one! You will want to do this at least three more times before your exam, practising using your quotes and ideas against new essay questions. If you get tired or are short on time you can just brainstorm how you would tackle the questions by dot-pointing your paragraphs. Eventually, this will become instinct and you'll do this effortlessly.

Want more personalised tips to drastically improve your English mark? A private tutor can make the biggest difference!

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Memorizing an essay is a useful skill for public speakers, performers, and students alike. When you have a deep understanding of the essay’s content and structure, you can deliver it confidently without the need for notes or other visual aids. In this article, we will explore three effective strategies for memorizing an essay: chunking, mnemonics, and rehearsal.

1. Chunking

Chunking is an efficient approach to learning that involves breaking down the essay into smaller sections or “chunks” instead of trying to memorize the entire piece at once. This method is based on the idea that our brains can process and retain information more effectively when it is presented in manageable portions.

To apply chunking to your essay, start by separating the text into meaningful sections such as paragraphs or groups of related ideas. Then, focus on memorizing one chunk at a time. As you become comfortable with each section, gradually combine them until you are able to recall the entire essay.

2. Mnemonics

Mnemonic devices are memory shortcuts that help your brain encode and recall complex information more easily. Some popular mnemonic techniques include:

– Acronyms: Create a memorable word or phrase using the first letter of each word in a list (e.g., HOMES for the Great Lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior).

– Acrostics: Form a memorable sentence using the first letter of every word or key idea in your essay.

– Visual imagery: Associate mental images with specific parts of your essay – like imagining a vivid scene to represent each paragraph.

Experiment with different memory systems and choose the ones that work best for you. Incorporate them into your study routine when trying to memorize an essay.

3. Rehearsal

Repetition is key when it comes to memorization. Reading or reciting your essay repeatedly helps reinforce neural pathways in the brain, making it easier to recall its content over time.

Begin by reading your essay aloud several times to fully internalize its structure and phrasings. Afterward, practice reciting your essay from memory. It can be helpful to have a friend or family member present during this process, as they can help you stay on track and provide feedback on your delivery.

As you become more comfortable with the material, focus on aspects such as pacing, tone, and body language to enhance your presentation. Additionally, practice under various conditions (e.g., standing up, sitting down, in front of a mirror) to prepare yourself for different situations.

In conclusion, memorizing an essay is a challenging yet achievable task when employing proper techniques such as chunking, mnemonics, and rehearsals. By dedicating time and effort towards mastering these strategies, you will develop the confidence and skills necessary to present an essay seamlessly – whether it’s for a public speaking engagement or an academic exam.

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