How to Memorise Add Math Formulae and Identities (So They Stay)

0606 gives you almost nothing in the exam: the formula list to carry in your head runs to about forty items. Students try to absorb it by reading it nightly, which fails, predictably, because recognition isn’t recall. Here’s the system that works.

Blank-page recall: the core drill

Twice a week, ten minutes: take a blank page and write the entire formula list from memory, organised by topic. Then check against the master list and mark the gaps. Drill only the gaps for two minutes. That’s it.

The first attempt is humbling, most students recall barely half of what they “know”. By week three the page fills reliably. The drill works because retrieval strengthens memory in a way that re-reading cannot; every act of successfully dragging the quotient rule out of your head makes the next retrieval easier. This is the most evidence-backed result in learning science, and almost nobody uses it.

Derivation anchors: memory with a safety net

For formulas with structure, learn the derivation alongside the result:

• Trig identities: $\sin^2\theta + \cos^2\theta = 1$ divided by $\cos^2\theta$ gives $1 + \tan^2\theta = \sec^2\theta$; divided by $\sin^2\theta$ gives the cosec form. One memory, three identities (trig notes).
• Exact values: two triangles ($1$-$1$-$\sqrt{2}$ and $1$-$\sqrt{3}$-$2$) regenerate the whole table.
• Completed-square vertex: comes from the algebra, not a separate fact (quadratics).
• GP sum to infinity: $S_n$ with $r^n \to 0$ when $|r| < 1$ (series).

An anchored formula survives exam-day blanks: ten seconds of re-derivation replaces a panic.

Use beats rehearsal

Formulas consolidate fastest inside questions. The schedule that exploits this: drill a topic’s formulas in the morning, solve that topic’s questions in the evening. The question practice is simultaneously formula rehearsal, which is why students who do high volumes of past-paper work rarely have formula problems by exam week.

What NOT to do

• Don’t make beautiful formula posters. Making them feels productive; the evidence says the gain is in retrieving, not crafting.
• Don’t cram the list the night before. Spaced drills over weeks build durable recall; cramming builds 12-hour recall with exam-morning decay.
• Don’t trust “I’d recognise it”. Recognition is precisely the wrong test, the non-calculator paper demands instant production, not multiple choice.

Make it a standing habit

Attach the drill to fixed slots (Tuesday/Friday, first ten minutes of study) and it survives busy weeks. Our students do the blank-page drill as a class warm-up, by the exam it’s reflex. If your child needs that structure imposed kindly from outside, that’s part of what a weekly 1-to-1 class provides: free 1-hour trial, booked on WhatsApp.