Everyone had their own methods, I suppose, but your friend's advice is pretty accurate for me. As a late stage graduate student, I'm never really tested on detail. The middle name of some political leader, the date some law was passed, the year of a storm -- all those things I can look up whenever I need to. Memorization plays very little part in the life of a professional historian.

Yet, I do remember detail -- and lots of it. It just doesn't seem like detail to me. I remember it because I read multiple narratives with basic information repeated, because basic facts are integral to the stories that interest me and that I want to tell in my work, and because when I tell stories (teaching or to my friends) I need those details to tell the story properly. I doubt any of that is much help to you as you prepare for your exam. But that's the best answer I can give to the question you asked. To the question you didn't ask (wait, on second reading you did) -- try note cards. That's worked for me in your situation in the past. But everyone is different.

One of the ways I remember things is physical (kind of). I don't have a photographic memory, but I remember where something is on a page if I read it enough times. I remember that a passage in a book was near the front half of a big hardcover book (left hand lighter than the right, lots of weight. That means that it's Thomas's Spanish Civiil War, not Beevor's Battle for Spain because I read the hardcover Thomas and the paperback Beevor). Stuff like that. So if you're like me one method can be to make yourself a "cheat sheet."

No, I would never advocate actually using a cheat sheet in an exam. But I found it to be useful to try to condense my notes as much as I could while not forgetting anything important. I would do that by getting a single sheet of legal paper and trying to cram as much onto it as I could. This gave me a single place to look--and it made me study everything in my notes comprehensively. Then I would try to condense everything on that legal sheet to half a sheet of paper or even a notecard. Again, making sure that I didn't leave anything out.

How I got everything smaller was condensing things into shorthand. I invented my own. For example, the list of popes from 1900 to now is LX3, PX, BXV, PXI, PX2, J23, P6, JP1, JP2, BX6, F. Translated to english that's Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis. So why the X's instead of 1's? Good question. My handwriting is awful, so I would confuse 1's and I's and lowercase L's with each other, but I seldom used X's. The same went for 5's and S's, so V's were substituted for 5's. But now my list of popes for all of the 20th century takes up a tiny bit of paper, which is cool.

I would also make lists of the various things I wanted to remember about a topic. QA, MBS, DR, NEMC. That's Quadragesimo Anno, Mit Brenneder Sorge, Divini Redemptoris, and Nos Es Muy Conocida--the four encyclicals that I would want to be sure to remember from Pius XI. But again, the space taken on that notecard is tiny. You can also use Mnemonic devices, using the first letter of each item in a list to associate it to a word and have those words add up to a sentence.

Now some of those tricks might not work for you, but they worked for me. They also made me be very complete in my studying. When I got down to the notecard level I would see what I could remember, talking through it to myself or even better writing it down--and I would check it against my notes. If I missed anything it was time to amend the notecard.

If you do try this method, make sure to have the notecard put securely away before the test begins. While I advocate cheat sheets, cheating is actually 100% unacceptable. If you're allowed scrap paper, what you can do is write down everything you remember from the notecard (which is still securely someplace else) onto the scrap paper so you don't forget anything and can refer back to it.

I hope that helps!

I remember doing my A2 History on the same exact topic!

I found it incredibly useful sitting and spending days making essay plans for every feasible question. This mean't that not only did I study the key legislation and events which I came pretty familiar with through repetition but also it was a good way to be able to apply analysis of their shortcomings/successes.

If you want, I can send my notes over - you might not learn anything from just reading over them but it could give you an idea of what might work for you....

Not a historian, but I sat my AS British history 1906-1951 exam last week. I strongly subscribe to Tony Buzan's mindmapping technique. Get all the essential information, dates and statistics down onto A3 sheets.

I recommend using those 4 colour Bic pens to do colour coded connectors and little drawings - in Buzan's book he discusses how colour and image assist memory.

My technique was to create the mindmaps, read them aloud to myself a few times, then I went out for coffee with my friends before the exam and we shot specific questions to keep things fresh in our minds.

I suppose we'll see how effective this was in a few months time.

Not a historian, but as someone who got an A on my A2 History exam, make a table and fill it with all the key events/figures/people. Write out the dates and the significant figures over and over again, and make essay plans based on past papers until you've covered every conceivable question. There's only so much content and eventually they have to recycle it, but with different wording. I had to remember all the key figures for about 100 years worth of Tudor England/Wales and this helped me.