It's short-term memory. And it's faster than your hard drive. Pretend your brain is a computer. RAM is like your brain's short-term memory.
Nothing stays in short-term memory for very long.
After you finish the math problem, you'll probably forget exactly how you solved it. That information leaves your short-term memory. You'll still know how to solve that kind of math problem, however, because that information is programmed into your long-term memory, just as computer programs remain on your hard drive. How RAM works When you want to use a program, your operating system copies the program from the hard drive into RAM, where the program is run. Your computer uses RAM as its workspace and short-term storage area, because RAM is much faster to work with than the hard drive.