Genius: Killer Freeware Study Software

You’ve got a test tomorrow. You put off the studying all week, and it’s all come down to this. You’ve got one night to learn all of the vocabulary. What do you do? Sure, you could make flashcards, but that’s so 20th century. Isn’t there a way to just learn the words?

That’s where Genius comes in. Genius is designed as an alternative to flash cards. Its purpose is to teach you the vocabulary quickly and efficiently by feeding you the words using fancy mind techniques, which may actually make you remember them.

Most people are probably screaming “iFlash!” at their computer right now. Sure, iFlash (which has been mentioned previously) is a great application to help you study, but its features are (in my opinion) overkill. Who really needs to record audio and attach pictures to their flash cards, and then sync it with their iPod? Who, of all the iPod owners in the world, would decide to study instead of watching the newest episode of Lost on their iPod? Not to mention iFlash will find your wallet $15 lighter after the 15-day trial expires.

Genius, on the other hand is a simple, free program (you’ll soon find out that this is the most important aspect for me). It shares the same basic features as iFlash, just without all the extra meat. You enter your words and their answers or translations into the list. Then click “Study.”

First, it tells you how to best get into the “alpha” mental state, which (as Genius has told me), is the mental state most conducive to learning. Then, your desktop darkens and you’re told the word and its meaning/translation. You press enter. Then, it asks you what the meaning of the word you just learned is. You type it. The next time you see the question, the answer is not shown, instead leaving the answer area blank. This process repeats, gradually feeding you new words as time goes by, but always going back to all of the words to make sure you don’t forget it.

It’s obviously done in such a way so that you remember the words better. And it works. Once you correctly know the meaning of a word 5 or 6 times, you get a nice green circle next to the word, indicating that you “know” the word. Genius has helped me through many Spanish tests this year, and the fact that it’s freeware makes it all the better. JCR Software’s website doesn’t have much going in design, but the developers behind this great software gem obviously know what they’re talking about when it comes to memorization. This is what I show people who say Macs are just for fun and play.

Genius costs $0 from jcr Software. There are also “packs” of vocabulary and other useful information available for download in the .genius file format online. Genius’s “official” community can be found in the “genius-talk” group on Yahoo Groups.