Is understanding a subject important or memorizing?

both of them are important, however understanding the concepts or the mains of points of the lesson you are studying is more important, because you get to explain the topic in your own words, but the meaning would be the same.. if you understand the subject well, you would do well in your recitations /exam as well. and also it depends on your teacher, some teacher gives objective exam, so even if you understood the subject well enough, you still need to memorize the concepts, since he / she will only accept the term that he taught.. that happen to me before, i encountered teacher who likes to give subjective and objective exams..it just lies on the student, on what method he will use in studying the subject...

I think it depends on the subject. If it is something that may actually be useful to me, I will actually try to learn it. However, in zoology I did not have time for both in a lot of cases. So when memorizing parts of the amphioxus, did it really matter if I didn't fully understand? Really am I ever going to need to know that again? I understood the functions and stuff enough to be able to answer them on the test, but now that the class is over I had to press the delete key in my brain because that was just way too much useless information.

In my view,both are very important.If you understand the subject you can remember it easily.I was first understanding the topics first and then memorizing it every month to get good marks and i was very successful.What you said is right.I you just memorize without understanding the subject you will forget the whole subject once you stop memorizing.Happy mylotting.

for me i do both, when i understand it memorize it.

Yeah, understanding the subject is more important than mugging up...however, I think memorizing has also some value added to it...you can not expect to do good in an exam if you only grasped on the concepts...

deepika, understanding is more important. If you understand the topic you can easily memorise that. otherwise very difficult to memorise for long term. If once understand means you can recall the subject whenever you want.

Hi to all........ I always try to understand the subject than memorizing it........ This helps us to study easily........... HAVE A NICE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HAPPY MYLOTTING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

its better to understand than to memorize, why? because one u understand the subject matter, even ur teacher will use other words but the same thought u will still know the answer unlike in memorizing once u missed one single line, then u lost it all.

HI Deepika, Yes you are right. If one doesn't understand the subject well, he/she will not be able keep that in mind for a long. Just memorizing( or what we say in India Ratta Lagana) a topic for few days will not help in next level.. It's always good to understand the topic then go ahead.. Happy MyLotting..