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Writer's pictureMath Lobby

How to study more efficiently using mind maps

Updated: Nov 22, 2020


Students nowadays are facing countless words every single day, and it is inevitable for the studying process to be extremely mundane or even repulsive to a mind which is at the age of high activity. Therefore, the old-school methods of facing a book filled with words is no longer practical. As times are changing, so should education for the younger generation.

Today, Math Lobby will be teaching you how to study more efficiently with the help of creating diagrams and mind maps. You must be wondering: Why take the extra effort to create mind maps?

It is because of something called the picture superiority effect, which refers to a phenomenon where people recall pictures better than they recall the associated words. Studies show that this effect allows us to retain information better for a longer period of time when we have a piece of information combined with images, rather than just a whole chunk of text.

Want to know about all the benefits of using a mind map? Check out our article on the benefits of using mind map

Alright, let’s learn to create our own mind map in just 4 steps! Let’s begin!

1. Pick a topic that will represent the whole chapter, and summarize it into a word/phrase or insert an image

First of all, choose a topic that represents the chapter you are creating a mind map of, then compact it into something short that you will understand. For example, you want to make a mind map regarding area and volume of different shapes and composite solids in Mathematics, hence you can just summarize it into “Mensuration”, or anything regarding circles, which you can summarize for it to become “Properties of circles”. Any form of summary is fine, what’s important is as long as you understand it!

2. From that main topic, branch out as many secondary points as you need, that each represent a single word/phrase that relates to the main topic

Next, you will have to branch out from the main topic that you have come up with, which is the general secondary points right before the major breakdown into the more in-depth information of the topic’s contents. For “Mensuration”, you can include: “area of plane figures”, “area of composite solids”, “volume of composite solids”.

3. Create sub-branches expanded from the secondary points to further elaborate the ideas and concepts which contain words to express the main key word

Now, you can start branching out more of the elaborated content of the topics, go into details of the chapter, express everything in a clear and concise manner so that during your revisions, it will serve you well in a quick recap and understanding of the chapter. Using the same example, under “Mensuration”, you can try including things like the types of plane figures and composite solids, and then elaborate it to showcase each and every unique characteristics of the shapes and the formula to use for getting its area or volume.

4. Use different colors and images to differentiate the branches and sub-topics

By using different colors, it helps to increase the necessary emphasis and focus on a particular region of the mind map whenever we need to. Like when we want to highlight a typical error that many will make when using a particular formula, we can use the color red to represent “warning”, or when there is an easier way to approach a type of question under certain circumstances, we can use the color green to represent “a more efficient method”. This will allow you to recognize different key points easily when you are mentally visualizing the images.

We have come to the end of today’s discussion and as the saying goes, “A picture speaks a thousand words.” Math Lobby hopes that all of you have learnt a new method of how to put chunks of words into an image format to create a more concise and compact mind map to aid you in your learning journey. Study hard, stay motivated and we wish all students a successful and enjoyable journey with Math Lobby!

If you want more Secondary Math Tips, Visit our Website at: www.mathlobby.com


To learn 13 chapters worth of examination strategies which A students use, study our Examination Strategies Guidebook at https://www.mathlobby.com/books

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