In my experience, homework is garbage. It’s busywork. The intent of homework is fine: repeat exposure of what you have previously learned. The execution of that intent is generally a piss-poor waste of time and energy.

The single best way I know of to retain information is to teach it to someone. Tutor someone, or group study. Or, in the absence of actually teaching it, plan a lesson, as though you intend to teach it to someone.

I’ll admit to not being very good about homework, but I didn’t wait until the last minute when I did do it. I was an okay student at best. Doing more homework would have helped me more than anything else.

What scum downvoted this!?

I found school wasn’t that helpful. They seemed more geared to just test. I used services like cbt-nuggets to supplement the lesson plans and found it invaluable. Perhaps there’s something like that available to you.

I also have adhd and the best thing I have found is tricking my brain into seeing the thing as interesting by adding context. I’m not referring to the associate a single thing with another thing that apparently works for most normal people, but by entirely changing the context.

Even singing the thing I’m doing to myself while I write it down can be enough. Or writing it down in a way that adds some extra context. A stick person on a sled on a graph of a slope is enough to remember something like whether it is ascending or descending. Or an alligator eats the larger number for 3 > 1.

More complex subjects are harder, but the concept is the same. Need to interact with it in a way that piques my interest or it is going to float away from memory.

If you can’t solve that problem, can you solve another slightly easier problem? Sometimes it is the level of difficulty that is too high for the moment, and you have to find something a little less challenging and repeatedly conquer that before you are capable of the more challenging problem. You may also be experiencing some anxiety because you are telling yourself you can’t remember it or do it. To work on this you will have to change your attitude toward your ability and working on the easier problems may also help you gain more confidence.

These are just suggestions from a veteran teacher who works with many students with the same issues; these are the things I’ve seen help the most. I hope they help you!

Maybe contemplate that for a bit. It’s not common for someone to forget things you are asked to memorise.

Why are you forgeting things that are asked of you? Why is it important for you to not remember them?

A meditation like state is quite good for that kind of introspective thinking. Closed eyes and quiet place really help to hear your inner quiet thoughts. (unless you have adhd, then you need different method)

Then the problem is that you are trying to memorise things that shouldn’t be memorised.

anki, mind palace and other mnemotechnics are good if you need to memorise irregular conjugations but math is different. The easiest method is to associate thing to memorise with some absurd and funny sentence. Emotions are relly good catalyst for memorising stuff.

Math is based on rules and principles that you need to mix and match. The standard and basic method is to do hundredths of exercises. The better aproach would be to use math to solve complex problem with a lot of different tools. Some algebra, some geometry, some analysis. It will engage your brain and by putting mental effort (not willpower effort) you will retain that stufd for the future.

doesn’t matter if i take notes or not i still forget what is in the exam

Then, let me ask how do you take note while you’re studying? It’s a technique, it’s not a magical wand quite obviously, nor is it in an On/Off switch. If it doesn’t work there must be a reason why, I mean a reason other than ‘it just doesn’t work’ ;)

I’m sorry if all what follows sounds painfully obvious but since you’re kind of vague on your exact process/situation and I can’t guess how you’re working I think it’s worth mentioning.

I mean, for example there is not much use in verbatim copying what you ear or what you just read in a book because, well, you’re not an audio recorder or a camera, both of those tools would do the job way better than any of us can ever hope to do. So, since we’re smart, we should use them to record instead of our brain which we shoudl use to understand what has just been recorded.

In fact, using the brain as a recorder is a gigantic waste our (limited) energy and won’t help anyone learn or understand much. Instead, you need to, how do you say that in English? You need to rephrase or to reword the teacher’s or the author’s thoughts into your own words. That’s how you internalize (make it your own) whatever you’re studying.

When I was a student my rule was to write whatever the teacher was saying as stupidly as I could. I did not sweat writing frantically to copy whatever crap he was saying. I listened and summarized multiple of his sentences (teachers need (and often like) to repeat themselves) in a few words at most. I also devised my own shorthand to make it even quicker to write stuff down without getting tired. Back in my room, I would then read my notes and re-summarize them if not the same day, at the soonest opportunity so it was still fresh in my mind (this helps a lot). Internalizing that info make it so that as a student I could easily spend a lot of time partying or having fun (and I did) while still acing all my exams…without cheating, I mean.

Also, merely underlining passages in a book (even using many nice colors) is not of much use either. It’s purpose should be to let you quickly locate what you think are meaningful sections, that’s all. To understand/internalize the idea itself, the best way is still to summarize it into your own words. Be it a lecture or a book.

also happens when mom asks me if we have mustard in the fridge

I have no idea what’s in our fridge or more exactly what needs refill. And why would I bother? Lists are made for that.

My spouse and I keep a small scrap of paper (usually, the back of an envelope—yep, we’re that cheap ;)) for whatever is missing or soon will need resupply and the first of us the goes out to do some errands pick that list. Unsurprisingly, our fridge is always exactly like we want it without any effort from us to memorize anything. Mustard is getting low? Add it to list, problem solved. We all have limited brain power, don’t waste it on useless crap like memorizing the content of your fridge.

Once again, all of this may sound obvious but that is also the fundamentals of learning/understanding and even memorizing anything. If you’re willing to share more specific info on your issue maybe I, or anyone else more qualified, could give more specific suggestions?

What I’m pretty sure of is that more often than not that kind of difficulties is related to the process itself not to some inability.

Hope this helps.

Depends, do you want it to work?

I’ve used it successfully to memorise phone numbers, shopping lists, etc.