Friday, March 7, 2008

Mnemosyne Flashcard Program

I have found that an effective way to remember information (once I understand it) is to use a flashcard program. These programs use the principal of spaced repetitions - as the person continues to recall information successfully, that information is presented for review less and less frequently. On the other hand, information that is not recalled correctly is presented more frequently. The goal is to commit information to long term memory as effectively as possible, allowing time for new information to be included in the learning process.

For a while I was using SuperMemo, which is a good Windows application. It uses a complex algorithm to determine when to present material and has many features. It's a commercial application; however older versions are available for free.

I am now using Mnemosyne, which is an open-source application. The program is available for Windows (download the Windows installer from the website), for Ubuntu (from the Ubuntu repositories) and possibly from other Linux repositories as well. The source is also available on the site.

As I go through the CSQE preparation course, I intend to organize the key information into question/answer pairs that can be loaded into Mnemosyne. As I create these question/answer pairs I will post them here (I make no promises, however.) My goal is to add information to Mnemosyne after every class and review the material that Mnemosyne presents every day, so that by the end of course all the information is already committed to memory, and I don't have a long review session before the test.

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