For Better Grades - Use Your Brain!

If you are like most students, you probably started this new academic year with a resolution to study harder. Now, science can you help you keep your resolution. Recent discoveries in brain research (30) _____ to better ways to learn. How does the brain (31) ____ new information? Think of the last time someone told you their phone number. Could you remember that number five minutes later? Probably not! That’s because it was in your short-term memory.

Our memory actually has three components. Sensory memory takes (32) ____ information from our five senses and is stored for just a few seconds while our brain processes it. Short-term memory works like a “holding area” for new information — that’s where you keep the phone number while you dial it. but if you can put the phone number into long-term memory, you’ll remember that same phone number next week. This part of your memory (33) ______ everything from irregular verbs to the names of all your cousins.

When you study, you transfer new information into long-term memory. Every time we learn something new, the structure of the brain actually changes as we build new connections to information that we (34) ______ know. When there are more connections to the new information, it’s easier to find it again.

“It’s no use talking to me about metaphysics. It’s a closed book to me.”