Comment by frognumber

I'll give a few examples.

* Learning biology, memorize terms like "anabolic reaction" or "reverse transcriptase"

* Learning algebra, memorize major groups like S_n or GL_n

* Learning statistics, memorize the major probability distributions, their means, and standard deviations

* Preparing for math contests, remember things like "Chinese remainder theorem"

That's a tiny part of learning, but it dramatically accelerates the other parts. At that point, when you're working through texts, you'll understand what you're reading without looking things up or thinking about it. And when you're engage in complex problemsolving, you'll have the knowledge ready.

Do this either on or before the first (surface learning) pass, and once they're memorized, use them in more advanced contexts (e.g. reading research papers, teaching, complex problemsolving, etc.).

All this stuff interconnects, and SR gives a fast, cheap way to start building out the simpler parts of the knowledge network.