Memorization/self-quiz software

May 26, 2006 5:30 PM

Does anyone know of good computer software for general memorization?

When I approach a topic or realm of information, I find that I am a "top-down" learner - I need to master the big picture first before I can remember all the little details. I'm looking for a software program that can aid this process. . .specifically, something where I can enter an outline and be quizzed on the major points or subpoints. For example, if I were to learn about physiology, I would want something where I can put the names of the major systems, then subsystems, and so on. Then the software would quiz me at a high level ("what are the major body systems") and at a lower detail level (name the major areas of the brain) and so on down through levels of detail. Has anyone ever seen anything like this?

posted by sherlockt to education (6 comments total)

Maybe FreeMind is what you're looking for? Take a look at the mind mapping wikipedia entry.
posted by aeighty at 5:43 PM on May 26, 2006

That's similar to what I'm looking for on the input/mapping side, but I also want it to quiz me on the maps/outlines I create. Thanks for the tip, though - I wasn't aware of FreeMind.
posted by sherlockt at 5:52 PM on May 26, 2006

I played with memaid for a while, and it's a good little text-based unix flash card program. Mnemosyne seems to be its successor, and appears to be available for windows.

They both use a neural net and/or statistics to keep track of what you tend to remember and what you have trouble remembering. (I think the grandfather of this theme is a commercial program called SuperMemo.)

Not 100% what you're asking for. But Mnemosyne will import XML, so you could ostensibly use a good XML editor/outliner to set up your questions and answers.
posted by gemini at 6:23 PM on May 26, 2006

VTrain is excellent
posted by Sharcho at 10:30 PM on May 26, 2006

RE: VTrain, I have a problem with any company who threatens damage to your hard disk, even for cracked pirate copies (do you trust their little trojan to be bug-free?).
posted by IronLizard at 4:23 AM on May 27, 2006

It says on the left "Words disappear at random from my vocabulary files". I doubt it will actually delete files from the hard drive, probably just hide words from the vocabulary if it detects a badly cracked version.

I agree that it's truly disgusting, that warning wasn't there before in the previous version.
posted by Sharcho at 4:52 AM on May 27, 2006