I never bothered with notes. They never seemed to work for me. I think and memorize visually or systematically. Having connected words or flat sheets of paper i

I never bothered with notes. They never seemed to work for me. I think and memorize visually or systematically. Having connected words or flat sheets of paper is no good to me. I also saw tests as of more of a nuisance and a disruption in building an understanding. To spend as little time on them as possible, I would figure out how the lecturer creating the test thinks. The day before the test I would spend a few hours having an imaginary conversation with the lecturer and made sure my model of him matched all my recollections of him/her (if unknown, I'd just imagine a generic lecturer). The imaginary form would ask me questions that might be in the test and I made sure I could answer them. I usually found the actual test to be predictable and much easier. My GPA in college was among the top 1%. I've tried to teach this technique to others occasionally, but with limited success. It usually fails on not being able to imagine a honest representation of someone else and only asking yourself questions you want to be asked.