How to Memorize Anything (39 page)

Day(s) before the exam

• Check the location and time of the exam.
  
• Get adequate sleep and exercise.
  
• Limit coffee, alcohol, and caffeinated food/beverages.
  
• Eat well-balanced meals.
  
• Get all your exam tools ready the night before.
  
• Maintain a positive attitude.
  

Day of the exam

• Do not try to learn something new hours before the exam; in fact for most students, it is best not to study on the day of the exam.
  
• Be careful not to compare yourself to others or berate yourself for not studying more.
  
• If you feel overly anxious, take steps to relax yourself such as deep breathing or a brisk walk.
  
• Arrive early but not so early that you get anxious.
  
• Avoid talking to other students (anxiety spreads).
  
• Give yourself affirmations like, ‘I know I can do it’, ‘I have studied well and will do well in exams’.
  
• Visualize yourself doing well in your exams with full confi-dence and belief.
  

These study skills will help you in the optimum utilization of your time, thereby yielding great results. If you keep following these skills, efficient time management will become a way of your life, which will be beneficial for you not only as a student but in the future as well.

PART D

TRICKS TO AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS

23

MEMORIZING 500-YEARS CALENDAR

C
alendar plays an important role in our day-to-day life. Every now and then, we refer to a calendar, be it for planning an event or a program, fixing an appointment, going for a vacation, planning an exam schedule etc.

How would you feel if you could have the calendar for the next 500 years at your fingertips?

In my seminars, I ask a person from the audience about their birth
date
, and from that I’m instantly able to tell them the correct
day of the week
on which they were born and they just look at me unbelievably.

With the knowledge of
phonetic codes, shape peg codes,
and some
basic calculation
, you can also know the answer and surprise your friends and relatives by telling the day of the week they were born in less than 5 seconds.
Memorizing a calendar is very useful for competitive exams as well
, where questions related to dates and ages are asked.

It will allow you to amaze and impress your family and friends with seemingly impossible mental feats. It’s actually quite easy to do with a little practice.

MEMORIZING 500 YEAR CALENDAR

If we observe any date, there are 4 main things:

• date,
  
• month,
  
• century, and
  
• year
  

We give each of these some particular codes. The sum of all these codes helps in determining the day of the week on which any given date falls.

Let’s understand the process and memorize the codes:

CODES FOR DATE

Divide
the date
by 7.

Write the
remainder
as the code of the date.

Let’s say the
date is 23
,

then 23 ÷ 7 gives 2 as the remainder

So, the code for the date (23) is
2
.

If the
date is 6
, then 6 ÷ 7 gives 6 as remainder

So, code for date (6) is
6
.

If the date is less than 7, then we can directly take the date as the remainder, as in the above case where the date is 6.

CODES FOR MONTHS

Table: 1

The month codes seem difficult to memorize as they don’t follow any clear logic as seen in the table above. Now, here is an easy way to memorize these codes using some association as given in the chart below for your reference:

Table: 2

CODES FOR CENTURIES

Table: 3

Observe that the pattern
6–4–2–0
goes on repeating in sequence again.

Code for current century 2000 =
6 or–1

(Instead of adding 6 you can subtract 1 to simplify the calculation. It will give the same result.)

CODES FOR YEARS

Table: 4

Example 1:

Now, let’s take the date
23
^rd
May, 1992

Date =
23
÷
7
gives
Remainder
=
2

Month = May =
2
(ref.
table 1
)

1992 = 0 + 3 =
3
(ref.
table 3
and
4
)

Adding all the codes together, we get:

2 + 2 + 0 + 3 =
7

This final sum
7
will tell the day of the week. Each day has its own code as shown in the table below:

CODES FOR DAYS

Table: 5

Since 7 corresponds to Saturday, so the day on 23
^rd
May, 1992 was
Saturday
.

MEMORIZING CODES OF THE YEAR

Memorizing specific codes for 100 years in a century is very confusing. You can memorize them if we can convert both the years and their respective codes into images and then make some association between the two. The years from 01 to 99 can be given images using the phonetic peg system.

As the codes for the years range from 0 to 6 only, these codes can be converted into images with the use of the shape method as shown below:

Let’s say the code for
92
is
3
.

Phonetic Peg
for year 92—BuN

Shape peg
for code 3—Heart

Association:
Visualize heart-shaped buns.

Similarly, the code for
year 15
is
4
.

Phonetic Peg
for year 15—Doll

Shape peg
for code 4—Chair

Association—
Visualize a Doll is dancing on a Chair.

In the same way, you can make association between all the 100 years and their respective codes.

Some more examples:

Find days of the week on which of the following dates fall:

Example 2:

28
^th
March, 1980

Date = 28 ÷ 7 gives Remainder = 0

Month = March = 4
(ref.
table 1
)

1980 = 0 + 2 = 2
(ref.
table 3
and
4
)

Adding all, we get 0 + 4 + 2 = 6.

6 is the code corresponding to Friday.

So, 28
^th
March, 1980 was a
Friday
.

Example 3:

5
^th
April, 2010

Date = 5 ÷ 7 gives Remainder = 5

Month = April = 0

Year = 2010 = 6 + 5 = 11

Total = 5 + 0 + 11 = 16,

Again 16 ÷ 7 gives the remainder = 2