Learners across the world can be broadly classified into two types – one, people who learn to understand and two, people who just cram things up!
The people in the first category understand a concept, while the latter merely memorize it to be able to recall it later.
In an attempt to understand which method of learning is better and why, we have listed down the differences between the two and their pros and cons:
- Remember for Years or Remember for hours: What would you prefer?
Understanding something requires more engagement with the topic at hand as compared to simply memorizing it. Hence, when a concept is ‘understood’, it stays in the mind for a longer period of time. Memorizing or in this case ‘rote learning’ can be as short lived as a few hours!
Marketing concepts for instance, need to be understood to be applied practically. If you memorize marketing concepts, you might pass your exams but you won’t know how to apply them unless you understand the crux of the concept.
- Learning, for the right reasons!
When you are bent on simply ‘memorizing’ something (say to get a higher score), you lose sight of your actual goal (education). Whereas when you understand a concept you are able to connect and compare it with other concepts and generate creative ideas. Memorizing won’t help you achieve any of this.
Memorizing limits the memorized content to ‘recall’, whereas understanding the concept helps in generating creative ideas!
As you can see, conceptual understanding is much better than mere memorization; as it helps you gain knowledge, perspective and grow.
For CAT, choosing the right approach to studying is CRITICAL.
Any serious CAT aspirant knows, that the exam puts a lot of stress on ‘getting the fundamentals right’. Also, there is a lot of emphasis on speed and accuracy, which is why many students tend to choose the easier way i.e. shortcuts to solve questions. While this may seem easy; it’s a big TRAP! The shortcuts always have ‘exceptions’, which, a person lacking solid fundamentals, would never know. One should keep in mind that these ‘shortcuts’ are to save time in the exam, not to make the preparation short!
Once, you are thorough with the basics, you can create shortcuts to solve problems, ON YOUR OWN, and use them efficiently. Thus, speed and accuracy are taken care of automatically!
We hope the above analysis will help you approach your studies in right way.
Happy Learning!
