Editing Failing Witch:Volume1 Episode3 (section)

===6===

“Come on in, everyone.”

Viocia’s room was small. The bed, desk, and closet took up about half the space. But it was still a very feminine room. For example, the desk by the window had a three-sided mirror on top, so it doubled as a dressing table. A space larger than a cutting board at one edge of the desk was covered with thick cloth and a charcoal iron sat on top of that. It may have been an old one Sabbath Party had given her. It was looking like the dancers here really doted on her.

A sweet scent hung in the air, so did she have a habit of snacking while she studied?

The small room felt very clean and refreshing, but…

“Viocia. Eep. Wh-why is your closet door bulging like that?”

“Yeah, make sure you don’t touch that. Ha ha ha. It’ll explode if you open it now, so seriously leave it alone!!”

Was that her idea of tidying up?

While the tutor didn’t need anything more than a few pairs of street clothes, indoor clothes, and sleepwear, he doubted that small closet was enough to hold all of a teenage girl’s clothing. She appeared to have a few small wooden boxes under her bed as well.

“M-my underwear is in there, so stop paying attention to it. Bad teacher.”

“The pervert tutor strikes again.”

He had accidentally stepped on a landmine there. A girl’s room was full of dangers.

With Melehe and Dorothea here too, he doubted there would be time to really focus on studying, but since he was actually in her room now, he decided to give her some advice on how to best arrange the room for studying.

With the noise from Sabbath Party, she would have a hard time studying for long periods in her room at night. But there were other options.

“Viocia, keep your flashcards next to your bed. You need to build a habit of learning one of them as soon as you get up in the morning.”

“Ehh? Teacher, if that really worked, then what was the point of all the studying I’ve done?”

“If you learn one a day, that’s more than 300 learned in a year.”

“Uh, when you put it like that…”

“That’s more than a full set of flashcards. It’s still spring and you want to start that as soon as possible, don’tcha think? With the exam, anything you can get ''basically for free'' outside of your studying hours can give you an edge. And for memorization, you can attach notes to anything you use a lot, like the iron or the water pitcher. By combining the knowledge with those memories, you can preserve the term in your memory. Make them about the size of a sticky note…no, forget that. (They don’t have those in this world yet, do they?) Make them about the size of your thumb. The long lists of herbs and Black Mass info is made to be looked up in a chart, so they aren’t really designed for memorization. By having to write them down with limited space, you have to figure out how to abbreviate them, which will help you remember them.”

“Hmm. So could I get Olivia to give me some old ribbon and cut that up?”

That would work great. Those dancers would have rolls of the stuff and it was good that she came up with the solution herself instead of regurgitating an answer someone else gave her. Although this way of thinking was more in line with Crowley’s idea of linking book knowledge with actual experiences to learn it on a physical level than it was with Gardner’s idea of writing your own book to organize the contents of your mind.

To take that a step further, simply ''creating'' a cheat sheet could be seen as a way of studying through experience. But that method wasn’t recommended since other people could get the wrong idea and you would have to fight your own temptation afterwards.

“For the calculation problems that don’t use memorization…you can associate them with a relaxing and time-consuming activity. For example, you could practice palmistry or write out weather control equations on the mirror while you take a bath, don’tcha think?”

The witch entrance exam didn’t require some fancy legendary weapon. That was plain enough from the fact that witch’s preferred to model their weapons after the everyday broom. Dedicating every part of your everyday life toward the exam was the standard path to success.

“That said, you should always only use one study method per category, like herbs, incantations, or potion recipes. That way you know what kind of memory to draw on for that category of knowledge, so you don’t have to worry about it getting all jumbled up in your head.”

“Does that really work, teacher?”

“Try it out for a few days and you’ll find out for yourself, don’tcha think? And if you have too much to learn and have to use the same study method for different categories, you can organize the categories by ribbon color or something like that. It’s only a second best plan, but that way you can organize the knowledge a lot like organizing your writing implements and other odds and ends in smaller boxes within the same drawer. Even if it’s a compromise, you need it to work as well as it can.”

Melehe held a hand to her forehead.

“Why would you tell her this when we’re here? That isn’t going to give her an edge.”

“Oops.”

“Oh, that’s a great idea,” innocently said Dorothea while toying with the bandages wrapped around her.