h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Based on the fact I can always seem to remember the lyrics of songs (unfortunately even those I hate) I'm convinced the way to remember key things for exams is to set them to a familiar tune . That way you just need to 'quietly' hum the tune whilst sitting the exam and the key facts come flooding back. I only realised this after finishing my degrees so I don't know if it actually works

Bex

To remember Pi to 20 places count the numbers of each word

3.14159265358979323846

Sir, I send a rhyme excelling
In sacred truth and rigid spelling
Numerical sprites elucidate
For me the lexicon's dull weight.

And for does old trig calcualtions

The Old Arab Carried A Heavy Sack Of Hay
Tan equals Opposite/Adjacent Cosine equals Adjacent/Hypoteneus Sin equals Opposite/Hypoteneus

You can tell my dad taught maths can't you.

I always found SOHCAHTOA so much easier....

sine= opposite over hypotenuse
cosine= adjacent over hypotenuse
tangent=opposite over adjacent

Shanana

I swear I passed my Geography O-level, which was all about America, through song lyrics. (E.g. Where are those Blue Ridge Mountains? In Virginia, of course!) It just goes to show how those C&W ballads get into your brain, whether you like them or not...

Oh thank the lord for that, I thought our school was the on;y one that taught that...

For my Higher Biology exam I made up a song about the chemical reactions involved in cellular respiration to the tune of Diana Ross's 'Chain Reaction' - it seemed to work during the exam and also made me realise that I have far too much time on my hands.

SOHCAHTOA sounds like some sort of Native American name it may work in the US but The Old Arab Carried A Heavy Sack Of Hay definitely is more a British thing to use. I'm sure both work in their respective cultures.

The trigonometry one I used was

The Cat Sat
On An Orange
And Howled Horribly


or:

TCS
OAO
AHH

translated into:

tangent cosine sine
opposite adjacent opposite
adjacent hypoteneus hypoteneuse

Excellent... thanks for confirming the idea works... shame I didn't think of it before I finished taking exams!

Bex