How to Memorize

Written by via Bible Quiz Coach's Manual.

Read one phrase at a time out loud. This example is from Hebrews 1:1. These are called Phrase Questions. To see all the phrase questions from Hebrews and 1 & 2 Peter, click here.

In the past who? God

In the past God spoke to our who? Forefathers

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through who? The Prophets

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at what? Many Times

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many time and how? In Various Ways

As quizzers learn the material, instruct them to read it slowly and mediate on what the Holy Spirit speaks to them. They need to read each phrase (out loud) five times, then look away and quote that phrase five times. Then, they should go back to the phrase, and (if they quote it correctly) read the first two phrases together five times out loud. They should repeat this procedure until they completely quote the entire verse. (This technique takes about two minutes per verse.) If they diligently study for fifteen minutes a day, quizzers can memorize six verses a day with no trouble. The next day, quizzers should repeat those six verses before moving on.

Quizzers may say they don’t have time to do this. Ask them to break down the fifteen minutes into three, five-minute segments. With new quizzers who have never disciplined themselves, the first few weeks are crucial. You must be a great encourager.
The question is always asked, "Should every quizzer memorize all the material?" Yes! If you set a standard of excellence, you will get it. But be realistic; because of various reasons, some quizzers might not accomplish the goal of complete memorization. Set goals for all your quizzers, but be flexible to adjust those goals. At the very least, all quizzers should memorize the primary verses.

There is no substitute for repetition. Tell quizzers to not skip a day! What they skip today cannot be made up tomorrow. It’s better to memorize a little everyday than cram for hours one day a week.

Memorization Ideas

Written by via Bible Quiz Coach's Manual.

ACME

Instruct quizzers to read the day’s verse, slowly, out loud, and for meaning. They need to read out loud; the more senses they involve, the more likely they are to remember and stay focused. Don’t let them skip over spots they don’t understand. It’s like math class. They should work through it and ask for help. If they don’t, they will have trouble learning the material past that point. If you have trouble with basic, rote memorization, try adding ACME to each verse.
Action Color Me Exaggeration

Paint a Picture

Our minds naturally think in pictures. The more unusual and ridiculous the image, the easier it is to remember. In quizzers’ minds, they should visualize the events about which they are reading. They need to use all their senses to imagine the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings a particular scene would have. The basic principle is to make it unusual, out-of-place, distorted, larger-than-life, exaggerated, or impossible. The unique and the outlandish will be recalled, while the ordinary will be hardly noticed.

Reference Quotation Questions

Reference Quotation questions ask for a specific chapter and verse number(s). Many quizzers can quote an entire chapter word perfect. But when asked to quote a specific verse, their heads (and sometimes their fingers) move back and forth as if they are reading a computer screen. These quizzers are only able to quote the chapter in order and are unable to pull out a verse. Each quizzer needs a set of quote cards. Along with the Scripture portion, this is a great resource. Quote cards come randomly put in a box. (Each quizzer will need to put the cards in order.)

Then they should rubber band all the cards from one chapter together. (They do not need to do the whole box at one time.) If you get the quote cards in May or June, this is a great summer project. Once quizzers memorize the entire chapter in order, they should mix up each chapter’s quote cards. Then they should pull a card out, read the Scripture reference that is on the back of the card, quote the verse, and then flip the card over to make sure the verse was quoted correctly. (They should repeat this for each card.)

They should then shuffle the cards and put a rubber band around them. They need to do this everyday for one week. Instruct the team to move to chapter two and do the same with that chapter. (Every few days the team will need to review chapter one.) They can never review too much. In fact, that is the main difference between the top Nationals quizzers and others. Quote and review; quote and review; then quote and review again. Later in the season, begin to put two chapters together, then three. By District Finals, they should have their entire boxes scrambled. (In preparing for Nationals, quizzers should go through their entire quote card boxes at least once a day.)

Concordance Questions

Concordance questions require knowledge of the portion’s concordance. For example, "In what verse and chapter is the word wedding mentioned in the book of John?" The answer is John 2:1 and 2:2.

Concordance questions are not asked in league competition, but study of this type of question is for District Finals, Regional Finals, and especially for National Finals. In the concordance section of the portion of Scripture, there is a unique word list. Unique words are words only used once in the entire Scripture portion. When should a quizzer begin to learn the unique words? There is no right or wrong answer as long as they have the words completely learned by District Finals (or Regionals at the latest). Some coaches start assigning five to ten unique words a week around October or November. It really depends on how many unique words are in a particular portion. By and large, this is useless information until the entire Scripture portion is memorized.

It is a good idea to circle the unique words in the Scripture portion with a pencil or highlight them in the color of the quizzer’s choice. The timetable for the concordance is about the same as for the unique word list. The question writers ask these questions at District Finals up through National Finals. In 1 Corinthians the word resurrection is mentioned five times. It is not enough just to know the word is found five times, but the quizzers must know which chapter and under which section title those five verses are found. It is found in chapter 15 in the section titled, "The Resurrection of the Dead." There are several ways to indicate this in your Scripture portion.

With a pencil, draw a wavy line under the word. At the end of the word, write the number of times it appears in the portion. For example, the first time the word resurrection is mentioned in Corinthians is 1 Corinthians 15:12. Under the word resurrection, draw a wavy line with the number 1 at the end. First Corinthians 15:13 contains the second use of resurrection. Draw a wavy line under the word and the number 2 at the end. It is recommended quizzers do this for every word found two to six times in the portion. The more times it is listed, the less likely it will be asked. (If a word is listed 45 times or more in a book, do not have your quizzers memorize it.) However, it is possible for a word with numerous references to come up. For example, in the book of 1 Corinthians, spiritual is found sixteen times. The word is found three times in 1 Corinthians 2. It is associated with spiritual truths, spiritual words, and spiritual man. That could be a question.