Using Mind Maps felt like cheating!

by Faizel
(Cape Town, South Africa)

A few years ago, I did Post Graduate Studies in Business Management. Being a keen Mind Mapper, using Mind Maps in Education for many years, I obviously used Mind Maps in the learning process.

But that in itself is not surprising or unique. What is unique is the fact that the final exams were 'open book' exams.

They allowed us to bring any personal notes and text books into the exam. This was unbelievable! I was able to bring my Mind Maps into the classroom and did not even have to memorise them.

I set about creating a Mind Map framework for each subject. At the time, I did not have Mind Map Software, so all the Mind Maps were done by hand.

I had all the Mind Maps in a single book, with divisions of the book as main branches and the chapter headings as sub-branches.

I then had Mind Maps for each of the chapters. To these I added page numbers and anything special to note in that chapter.

When it came to writing the exam, I had a Mind Map index of the whole subject available at my fingertips!

While others were frantically paging through their text books and notes, I calmly used my Mind Map index to answer the questions.

What should've been the most difficult exams in my life, turned out the be the most fun!

Can you now understand why I say it felt like cheating?