How to Memorize Anything (19 page)

• ‘Hide-and-seek’
  method is the most reliable memory technique and is used by almost all memory champions of the world.
  
• It is also known by different names such as loci method, journey method, placement method, roman room method, etc.
  
• In the
  ‘Hide-and-seek’
  method, we choose a familiar location or a route in which we identify some stops or places in a sequence.
  
• Then we associate items to be memorized with these stops.
  
• Hiding places should be familiar and unique.
  
• Stops must be in a sequence.
  
• This method can be used to memorize things like:
  
  • Points of speech
    
  • Answers
    
  • Shopping lists
    
  • Minutes of meetings
    
  • Checklists
    
  • And much more information which is in a sequence or points form.
    

10

MNEMONICS

M
nemonics (pronounced ‘new-mon-ics’) are methods, devices, or any learning techniques that helps in retention of information. The word comes from the Greek word ‘
mnemonikós
’, which means ‘of memory or relating to memory’.

Ancient Greeks and Romans distinguished between two types of memory: the ‘natural’ memory and the ‘artificial’ memory. The former is inborn, and is the one that everyone uses automatically and without thinking. Artificial memory in contrast has to be trained and developed through learning and practicing a variety of mnemonic techniques. There are studies done in the past that prove students who regularly use mnemonics show a remarkable increase in their test scores.

But mnemonics aren’t just for children. In an article titled ‘Stalking the Wild Mnemos: Research That’s Easy to Remember’, educational psychologist Joel R. Levin concluded that ‘
sufficient research evidence now exists to suggest that even skilled learners can become more skilled through mnemonic strategy acquisition and implementation’.

FORMS OF MNEMONICS

Mnemonics are of various forms like:

• Rhyme mnemonics
  
• Acronyms
  
• Acrostics
  
• Music Mnemonics
  
• Number Phrase Mnemonics
  
• Image Mnemonics and
  
• Spelling Mnemonics
  

1. RHYME MNEMONICS

In this form of Mnemonics, the given information is transformed into a poem.

For example:
Do you remember when Columbus sailed to America?

In Fourteen-hundred ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Wouldn’t it be easy to recall now?

A commonly used
Rhyme Mnemonic
for the number of days in each month is:

30 days hath September, April, June, and November.

All the rest have 31,

Except February, my dear son.

It has 28 and that is fine,

But in Leap Year it has 29.

Similarly, mnemonic for memorizing the year in which
three new states named Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand, and Jharkhand
were formed in India could be:

2000
was the date,

When India got three new states.

Chattisgarh, Uttarakhand,

And then followed Jharkhand.

The three Battles of Panipat can be memorized as

The first battle of Panipat,

1526 was when it was fought.

Thirty years later(1556) again it happened,

That was Panipat battle number second.

1761 was battle number third,

Which was won by Ahmad.

If you learn things like this, you will be able to remember it for a longer period of time. Adding a rhyme to any given text adds to its recall value.

2. ACRONYM
(First Letter Mnemonic)

In this, the first letter from a list of words is taken to form a new word. That new word is called an
Acronym
. Acronyms are used in many fields.

Some common acronyms you must be aware of are:

• UNO:
  U
  nited
  N
  ations
  O
  rganization
  
• LASER:
  L
  ight
  A
  mplification by
  S
  timulated
  E
  mission of
  R
  adiation
  
• AIDS:
  A
  cquired
  I
  mmunedeficiency
  S
  yndrome
  
• ATM:
  A
  utomated
  T
  eller
  M
  achine
  

We can make our own acronyms by taking the first letter of each word in a list of items to be remembered which can serve as a mnemonic. This is especially useful when you have to remember a short list of words in a particular order.

For example, in my childhood, my mother made me remember the seven colours of the rainbow by using the word
VIBGYOR
which involves the first letter of seven colours in a sequence (
V
iolet,
I
ndigo,
B
lue,
G
reen,
Y
ellow,
O
range,
R
ed).

I also used this technique in the beginning of the book to introduce you to the three laws of memory by forming the word
AIR
.

AIR
:
A
ssociation,
I
magination,
R
idiculous Thinking

Just by remembering the word AIR, you will be able to recall the three laws easily.

Some other examples of learning through Acronyms are:

• PEDMAS—
  To remember the order of functions to solve an algebraic equation in Mathematics:
  P
  arentheses,
  E
  xponents,
  D
  ivision,
  M
  ultiplication,
  A
  ddition, and
  S
  ubtraction.
  
• HOMES—
  To remember the Great Lakes of North America:
  H
  uron,
  O
  ntario,
  M
  ichigan,
  E
  rie,
  S
  uperior.
  
• FANBOYS—
  To remember the coordination conjunctions in English:
  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
  .
  
• PVT.TIM HALL
  —Essential amino acids:
  P
  henylanine,
  V
  aline,
  T
  hreonine,
  T
  ryptophan, Isolucine, Methionine,
  H
  istidine,
  A
  rginine,
  L
  eucine, Lysine.
  
• BHAJSAB
  —To remember the rulers from the Mughal dynasty-
  B
  abar,
  H
  umayun,
  A
  kbar,
  J
  ehangir,
  S
  hahjahan,
  A
  urangzeb, and
  B
  ahadur Shah Zafar.
  

When it is not necessary to remember the information in a sequence, the letters can be rearranged to make a more meaningful word. For example,
body’s excretory organs
are
Liver, Kidneys, Skin, Lungs, and Intestines.
The initials are
LKSLI
which can be rearranged to form a meaningful word
SKILL
. Now you can easily relate it by saying that body has a
skill
to excrete
wastes. It’s important to connect or associate the acronym with the topic of the information to be learnt (in this case, excretory organs).

CAUTION:
While making new words, it is important that you are familiar with the words whose initials you are using. For example, you must know the names of the great lakes of North America, and only then will the acronym HOMES be useful to you. If you don’t know the names, then other methods like the PNN and chain method can be more useful.

3. ACROSTICS
(First Letter Sentence Mnemonic)
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In this form of Mnemonic, the first letter of each term is taken and starting from those letters, some new words are formed in such a way that they make a meaningful sentence. This is the most commonly used mnemonic popularly known as
Acrostics
. Such mnemonics are generally used when you have to memorize a list of items in a specific order.

For example:

In this particular case, where two zodiac signs, Leo and Libra are starting with letter ‘L’, a person may mistakenly relate ‘Likes’ with Libra instead of Leo. To avoid that misunderstanding, one can make an association with the spelling of the two. Leo has ‘e’ after L and Libra has ‘i’ after L and since e comes before i in alphabet, so Leo comes before Libra in zodiac signs.