Truth should be told- studying for exams is never fun.
Who wants to be inside the house studying when you can be watching the new Indiana Jones movie? Or having coffee with a friend?
If you ask me, if I got to choose between writing a paper and an exam I’d take writing a paper any time.
Writing a paper is a lot more helpful than exams. I have no doubt in my mind that writing a paper is a better way to learn a new topic, learn new things about a topic we’ve been talking about for a while, and the best part is- everything that I learn in the process of writing the paper stays with me.
That hardly ever happened to me while studying for exams.

Studying for exams in TCM means that you need to learn lists of functions for acupuncture points and herbs by heart. If you understand it- that’s great, but I never felt like this was the main goal of the exams.
That sounds a bit wrong doesn’t it?

I look at exams this way:
They are the door that I need to go through to reach my goal. For example- I need to take 3 exams to move on to the 3rd year, so that’s what I’m doing. The main 2 things are everything that I learned during the 2nd year, and everything that I will learn during the 3rd year.
Exams are not the main thing, they are just a door we need to go through in order to get what we want.

Keeping that in mind, I will suggest a number of techniques I found to be helpful during studying for exams, but first, you should know that there’s a difference between studying to a multiple questions exam and an open questions exam.
Most of the exams I had to take were multiple questions, so the techniques I’m talking- I think- are best suited for that kind of studying.

1. Crazy stories: I found this technique to be helpful mainly with herbs. I used to make up the most crazy stories I could think of. The more crazy they were the better. It seems that the human brain remembers crazy stories much better than calm, un-eventful ones. My stories included functions and attributes of a single herb or a formula, all linked by crazy links and telling some dumb crazy story that never happened. The stories should be short enough to remember and make sure that they are not similar to other stories you come up with, or else you’ll get them mixed up and then it won’t work that well.

2. Post-it notes all over the house: and I mean all over the house- the walls in the living room, the inside of your closet, on the mirror, near the sink, at the walls of the WC… this works well with point and herbs.
For example- you write the name of the acupuncture point and the functions+location. When you look at the point while putting on your make-up (or if you’re a guy- while you’re shaving) you see the point’s name and then you ask yourself- where is that point located? what does it do?
Another way to use this technique is to write only the function and try to think what is the name of the point. And the same goes for herbs.

The point of this technique is to constantly make you think about the stuff you need to know.
Yes, a break is good, but this technique allows you to have a sneak-study session every now and then. It’s also a good exercise for multiple questions exams- makes you think of a certain point or herb from every angle possible.

3. Chinese Medicine logic: there’s always the way of just memorising it again and again until it sticks. That’s a good way to go and I used to do that most of times. But sometimes, it just won’t stick, like it happened to me with the Gall Bladder meridian. So I had to think of other ways to remember it, one way is to think of the element- in the GB’s case it was the Wood element. Another thing is to think of the main functions of the organ- what are the things it does in the body? What are it’s pathologies?
These questions help clarify the ideas that are behind the organ (to say it quite simple), therefore the ideas behind the meridian. This is not a 100% solid way to go, but it helps 85%-90% of the times, and then all that is left it to memorize the 15%-10% that won’t fall into that logic.

4. Groups of points: a good thing about the acupuncture points is that you can study them by groups- source-yuan points, the element points, the back shu points and so on. Once you understand the basic idea of each group, you will have a good foundation to add more functions to a certain point. Chances are that you covered most of the important functions of certain points simply because of the group to which that point belongs to.

5. Dui Yao: I can’t recommend on this technique from personal experience, because I didn’t know of this way of studying while I was studying Chinese herbs. Philippe Sionneau wrote the book Dui Yao, which talks about studying herbs by couples. I was lucky to find him not as busy as always, and got to interview him via e-mails, and that’s how I got to know this book and this idea, which seems a good way to go if you ask me.
Give it a try, and let me know what you think of it.

6. Surprise me: I used little notes which I folded and then randomly opened a note and had to say out loud everything I knew on a certain point, syndrome or herb. This is a technique for the last couple of days of studying, where nothing new can get inside the brain and you must master the information you managed to remember from all the studying. This is also the part where studying with a friend can be helpful!

7. Keep it short: trying to memorize a whole bunch of functions of one point or herb all at once is too much. Try to keep it as short as possible and study it one by one. What I mean is that you should study one function at a time. Don’t study all 5 functions at once. Keep it short, study one function and give it time to sink in. Once that is solid in your brain, go to the next function.

*Recommendation*
The day before the exam- don’t try and study anything new.
There is really much that your brain can handle, and chances are that you used up all the space for that one exam- nothing new will stick on this day.
What I always did was kick back, go over the material for the exam maybe two more times, and actually do other things and clear your mind for a bit.

Using these techniques for 4 years got me good grades and the main thing- I got to move on to the next year until I graduated.
Remember that in your future clinic no one will ask about your grades on your 2nd year finals.
All your future patients will care about is whether or not you can help them. And that’s what you should come out from school with, the ability to help people with Chinese Medicine.

Please note that these techniques are only recommended for studying for exams.
This is not a good way to study Chinese Medicine that is not for exams.

Good luck everyone!

Do you have more techniques that can help others studying for their exams? Share them here by leaving a comment.