To understand this better, let me use an analogy.
Imagine that every learning point—not just broad topics, but individual concepts—is a small numbered ball. For a single subject, you'd have hundreds of these balls. Across multiple subjects, you'd have thousands.
[Ball Image]
When you take an exam, you're essentially being asked to pull out specific numbered balls. Since exams can't test everything, educators identify the most important balls and teach you their numbers. Your teacher's job is to ensure you know these key numbers and can retrieve the right balls when exam day arrives.
But if you're told the numbers, why is it still so difficult? Because the exam doesn't just ask you to recite a number—it asks you to reach into your knowledge and pull out the exact ball.
The real issue isn't the teaching. It's how your mind organizes information.
Picture your mind as a giant container holding thousands of mixed-up balls representing your collective knowledge. Even if you know the exact number you need, you might not know how to find and retrieve it efficiently.
Most learners focus entirely on memorizing ball numbers while completely ignoring the need for a retrieval system. This is the core problem with exam preparation.
The Common Approach and Its Flaws
Most students follow a familiar pattern: attend class, take notes, review those notes repeatedly. In our analogy, they're trying to increase the number of duplicate balls with the same number, hoping that when they randomly reach in, they'll pull out the right one. This might seem logical, but it's deeply flawed.
You're still blindly reaching in, hoping to grab what you need. You might create dozens of copies of one ball number, but as you do, other important balls get crowded out and forgotten. The container becomes cluttered with duplicates while variety diminishes.
This passive strategy requires enormous effort. It feels easier because you're focused on specific content, but you're relying on a single, vulnerable extraction method: random retrieval and hope.
A Better System
What if, instead, you immediately organized your container by splitting balls into groups? Now, rather than reaching in blindly, you can scan specific groups.
What if you grouped similar balls together? Suddenly, your search area shrinks dramatically. Compare this to the first strategy—wouldn't multiplying balls be far more effective after you've categorized them?
What if you developed a system so refined that you didn't even need to remember the exact number? Your categorization could narrow things down so precisely that you'd know exactly which group contains your ball, allowing you to grab it immediately. At that point, creating duplicates becomes genuinely useful—what was once extremely difficult becomes easy.
Your ability to create organizational systems is far more important than memorizing individual facts.
Why Don't More People Build Systems?
Because they're stuck in outdated habits. As a child learning for the first time, repeatedly duplicating information and randomly retrieving it was actually ideal. With so few balls in your container, you could find what you needed quickly without any complex system.
But as you aged, gained more knowledge, and developed diverse interests, that simple strategy began to fail. Yet it's the only approach you've ever known. It worked so well for so long that you still believe it's the best strategy—even when the evidence suggests otherwise.
