Study tricks your friends will beg you to tell them
I’m no telepathic genius, but I’ll bet that if I visited your desk to check out your study aids you’d have pencils, pens, paper … and maybe index cards, if we’re lucky. If that’s true, your desk needs a serious makeover. The index cards have some potential, I’ll admit, but good studying (as we learned in the last chapter) requires engaging your brain. A drawer full of boredom will hardly do that.
If I studied all night and still failed the test is your mantra, this chapter is for you. Many of my students would come to me after I handed back their test grades, chanting this very same mantra while looking like someone had just stolen their breath. If I probed to find out what “studied all night” meant, most would admit it had something to do with opening the book and staring at the pages for hours, hoping the information would miraculously carve its way into their brains. Of course, you already know why this “study” technique didn’t work: Input but no Output.
Think about what catches your attention every day—bright billboards, fast-paced commercials, and just about anything on a television screen. Some pedagogists ponder why so many Americans under twenty-one can recite five beer slogans but not the first five presidents of the United States. My response is this: when was the last time you saw John Adams and James Monroe running along a beach with bikini-clad pilgrims? I mean, that’s the sort of image you’d remember, right? Marketing executives are no fools. They know the tricks that get people memorizing worthless jingles for plastic cheese and colored fruit-less juice. So, what do they know that we don’t?
The marketing folks know this: some combination of color, movement, sound, and mnemonics will make virtually anything memorable. Let’s apply that to the topic at hand and see what we can do about giving your desk drawer a face-lift.
Oh, and since you already know your primary learning strength from chapter two, I’ve added 
for Auditory, 
for Visual, and 
for Kinesthetic beside the study tricks to give you a starting place depending on your primary learning strength. I’ll also include a series of icons to guide you to quick study tricks when you’re short on time 
, tricks that are great for groups 
, tricks that work best when you’re on your own 
, tricks that require extra materials 
, and tricks best paired with chocolate 
. Maybe not that last one, since isn’t everything better with chocolate?
Of course, don’t take my icons as gospel truth. Just because you may be a doesn’t mean you won’t like Tinted Tabs (which I marked a ). Nearly all learners use at least a little bit of each strength, so the learning strength notes are simply a suggested starting point as you begin testing out tricks. And, just because you’re home alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give Twisted Twister a whirl. Even though it’s listed with a group icon, it may be the best thing you’ve ever done to prep for your vocab test, and if so, go for it. This should go without saying, but just in case it isn’t obvious, feel free to customize the tricks to stimulate your own strengths and interests. For example, I said Paper Flaps fit all three strengths because if you’re an Auditory learner you can speak aloud whatever is on the cards, if you’re a Visual learner you can simply stare at them and cover the flaps to test what you’ve seen, and if you’re a Kinesthetic learner you can flap and flip while you practice. The point? Make these tricks work for you. On a final note, if your school has begun to incorporate e-textbooks (lucky you!) you have a unique toolbox available to you as you study in addition to what is listed here, and much of this will be tweakable and applicable to your system.
The next time you’re near a market, grab some colored pencils, pens, or markers. If you think color is only important for Visual learners or kindergartners, you are mistaken. Unless you see the world in monochrome and prefer it that way, a little bit of color is just what the doctor ordered to spice up your study life and help improve your learning efficiency. Here are a few ways to incorporate color into your notes and (assuming you’ve purchased them) into the margins of your books.
RAINBOW NOTES are an art form using color to denote new information. The key is finding the balance between too much and not enough so that you are effectively marking the most critical ideas, terms, or developments in the plot as they appear. Get started by jamming a couple of colored pens into your backpack and the next time the teacher starts spouting off terms you’ve never heard before, you’re ready to write them in red and look them up at home later. Once you’ve looked up the definitions, you can write them alongside in green. Outline major ideas you want to remember in orange (unless of course you prefer purple). Use as many colors as you like to both take and interact with (that is, study) your notes, creating as many color-coded categories as are helpful for you. In addition to getting you actively involved with your notes, it will also create an easy identification system so you are able to scan your notes quickly and spot bold terms as they apply to themes or new concepts. (, , , )
ENTERTAINING UNDERLINING uses colored pencils or markers to represent your responses. Just as with the Rainbow Notes, create your own key and try to be consistent from book to book and subject to subject (where possible) so you are able to develop your own language of note-taking that you can easily reference for years. Your color key might start off like this: red underlining means “this is the most moronic idea I’ve ever heard”; purple means “this is absolute genius, and I’m having it tattooed on my right forearm”; yellow means “this is a critical moment/character introduction for the story, I just know it!”; and orange means “huh?” so you can ponder the point later or ask someone else her perspective. Entertaining Underlining will save you bundles of time because you won’t have to take notes while you read or stop and make comments in your margins every single time you underline, but you’ll have the benefits as if you did. They are also handy because the book becomes full of color-coded notes at the ready for when the teacher asks some obscure question about Piggy’s glasses in Lord of the Flies. Of course, you will have brought your vividly noted book to class and will be able to flip quickly and find the yellow-coded answer, impressing the lovely person next to you while the poor saps in class are still frantically flipping through 150 pages of meaningless penciled underlining. (, , , )
TINTED TABS help organize your notebook and will save your bacon if you’re using a single notebook to hold multiple types of notes from one class, or multiple sets of notes from different classes. There is nothing more frustrating than knowing my notes are in here somewhere but not being able to find them for your second period teacher’s pop open-notebook quiz. To save yourself such pain, devise a system where colors represent certain categories and then mark the appropriate color as a check or scribble in the top right corner of your notes. For example, in your lab book mark blue in the corner for the pages that included dissections, red in the corner for the labs where you studied chemical reactions, and purple in the corner for notes you took preparing for the labs. Or, if it’s a literature notebook, assign a color to each of the novels that you read for the course, like green for Gone with the Wind and blue for To Kill a Mockingbird, so that on the days you discuss one or two novels you can find the notes with a quick flip. Not all of the pages will need to be or should be color-coded—only the ones you think are most critical. Once you get the most important corners marked, the only thing left is to make sure your lab book doesn’t end up in your literature class. (, , )
DOODLING DIAGRAMS don’t require any artistic skill and will help your brain see what you are learning from a fresh perspective by doodling with a purpose. With a handful of markers or colored pencils at the ready, flip to a blank sheet of paper in your notebook and begin to organize what you have just learned in class today into some sort of picture. If you’re studying physics, draw Newton and his falling apple, and be sure to make relevant notes on the doodle about what you have learned (such as the velocity of the falling apple as a result of gravity, or the deceleration of the apple as it rolls down the hill away from the tree). Science and math pair well with diagrams, but that doesn’t mean you need to leave out the softer subjects. It will take a whole lot of branches to keep track of the marriages of Henry the VIII as a family tree. Or, keeping with the tree theme, you might look at Boo Radley’s tree in To Kill a Mockingbird, and sketch the gifts inside that represent major themes in the book, drawing parallels to what you’ve learned about the characters. The point is to put your doodles to good use—just because it’s homework doesn’t mean it can’t be pretty. (, , )
CONSTRUCTIVE CONSTRUCTION PAPER is an easy win when you don’t have a lot of time to doodle and make paper cutouts to study, but you want a clean, simple solution for reviewing something every day so you’ll still know it in a few months when finals roll around. Grab your kid sister’s construction paper (perhaps asking first, you don’t want to make her cry) and pick out a few sheets of bright colors, each different. (Different colors keep this exercise interesting for the brain.) For the sake of example, let’s say you have five equations to memorize, a short set of historical dates, and a passage out of Macbeth. Using a different color for each subject, write out each on the construction paper with a permanent black pen. Tape your equations on the wall next to the toilet (no joke—now you know why I suggested permanent marker), your Macbeth passage next to the sink where you brush your teeth, and your historical dates in the kitchen where you fill your water glass. The colored paper will automatically draw your eyes to the card every time you brush your pearly whites for two minutes. (If you want extra sticky stars, and if the topic bears a lot of review, get the paper laminated and hang it in your shower or tape it to your kickboard when you swim laps at the pool.) Congratulations. You’ve just made excellent use of Dead Time while polishing your gleaming smile, and you may even have given your little sister a head start on the Quadratic Formula. (, , , , )
Your brain is potentially larger than Albert Einstein’s, since the average brain is 3 pounds and his weighed a minuscule 2.71 pounds. Maybe size doesn’t matter that much after all.
These are just five possibilities of how color can make studying easier (not to mention cheery). Test them out. You will probably discover even more ways to use color in the process.
A little less gawk and a lot more action should be the motto of everyone’s study hour. There’s a smidge of Kinesthetic learner in all of us, and we would do well to get a bit more involved with what we’re learning. What this means is that instead of staring at a page and expecting the information to become burned into your conscious memory, force yourself to get mobile while you study and to make use of Dead Time you might have spent aimlessly waiting for the bus or the orthodontist.
FLASH CARDS are a timeless wonder and are more amazing than you may think. If there are formulas, definitions, or key themes you need to remember, this is an effective little tool to give your brain practice. And it’s cheap. Flash cards are terribly underestimated because they’re just simple index cards. But, they’re easy to use, inexpensive, and highly portable. Both the act of organizing your notes onto the cards and practicing them are productive Output. Even more effective is designing a question-and-answer quiz that flips front to back so you can test yourself as opposed to only listing the information on the front. This works for non-Q&A info as well, such as quotes, since you can put one-half of the quote per side and quiz yourself about the part of the quote that is missing. Even equations work. Put the variables on one side (Force, Mass, Acceleration) and the equation on the other (F=MA). Putting a minimal amount of information on each flash card (as opposed to printing the world’s smallest version of the Constitution on a single card) will make the “flash” that much more effective. So, the next time you have an unexpected wait in line or a long red light, pull out your cards and flash yourself. (, , , )
PAPER FLAPS are a cousin to flash cards, but with a slightly higher risk of paper cuts because of all the excitement. Flapper, beware. To make one, fold a piece of paper in half lengthwise, with the right half of the paper falling short of touching the left by an inch or two. On the left-hand side of the fold write key battle locations in the Civil War. Now open the paper and on the right-hand side of the fold write very brief notes of why that battle was important, such as where it was located, or casualties, or who won. Once you have filled both sides of the paper with information, you can play “peek-a-boo” with your brain by looking at the left-hand side of the paper, trying to guess the answer, and then lifting the flap to see if you got it right. The trick is to leave enough space between each line so that you don’t see the answer to the next question before you’ve asked it. (, , , , ) (See this page.)
MEMORY FANS require a bit more preparation, but for the origami enthusiast this is a real winner of a way to study. First, fold a piece of paper back and forth multiple times, as though you were going to make a folded fan to cool yourself on a humid day. The tinier the folds, the more statistics, definitions, and events you can include. On the first flap, write a question, word, or date you are supposed to know. Behind that flap, write the answer. Do this for all of the flaps until the paper is full. You might even tape both ends of the paper together to make a tube so you can study by flipping it around your fingers, kind of like a corrugated toilet paper tube on its hanger. Lovely image, eh? The nice thing about this device is that you can use it backward and forward, not to mention it keeps you cool during heat waves. (, , , , )
TWISTED TWISTER may be the strangest way you have ever studied, but at least you’re guaranteed a good workout and, potentially, fun with friends. Get a pack of colored index cards and pick two different colors for this game, such as green and orange. On all the green cards, write the word, date, or compound you are trying to learn. On all the orange cards, write the answer. Do this for at least twenty-four different pieces of information and then spread them out on the floor randomly, but in four even rows. Turn on your favorite tunes (preferably without lyrics so your subconscious can stay focused) and get your feet moving. Put your right foot on a random green card and look for its match, placing your left foot on it once you find it. Hold that pose. Now use your left hand to pick a random orange card and match it with your right. Without moving your hands, pick a new green pair for your feet. If your study group is studying multiple subjects together, you can use this as a review strategy and organize subjects within their own color of index cards: red for literature, green for history, orange for chemistry, and so on. This may not be the next big seller at Christmas, but it’s sure to be a hit at your next study group. Even if you play the game alone, you’re guaranteed to stay awake while you study. (, , , , )
OLD MAID IN THE SHADE is a method that uses the same supplies as Twisted Twister. In fact, if you’re breathless from your first round of Twisted Twister, you can take a break and use the same cards for this game. Or, if the Twisted Twister cards have been decimated, use your Flash Cards. This game requires a few extra hands and brains, so get your study partners together for this one. Deal out the index cards as you would a deck of cards and play a round or two of Old Maid or Go Fish (or Memory, if you’re by yourself). This is especially great for learning vocabulary. For instance, if you have “cuchara” in your hand, you can ask if someone has “spoon” (which is what cuchara means in Spanish), make the match, and get a point. Of course, games like these are a bit more fun if there is a prize at stake. How about the loser buys a round of smoothies? (, , , , )
MAD ACTOR is for those who have an imagination and don’t mind acting a little crazy for the sake of an education. This study trick can be performed with or without study partners. If there is a scene in a piece of literature you don’t understand, or if you’re trying to remember a historic decision, act it out. Pretend you’re Galileo defending himself before the courts, saying you are not heretical by believing the world is round, and act out what the bantering must have sounded like. Props, costumes, and various stances around the room will make this even more memorable. If it’s chemistry, pull out your test tubes. If it’s physics, get marbles, levers, or pulleys to work for you. If it’s biology, act out microevolution as you change from one creature to the next. If your study partners are nearby, a great way to enhance this game is to turn it into charades. Folks might think you’ve gone mad in study hall, but at least you’ll earn an A on the test before being shipped off to a rubber room. (, , , )
LOCATION CODIFICATION is a fantastic method for memorizing just about anything by storing information in a secret code around specific locations in your house. It was developed way back in the day, long before some guy invented sticky notes, by Simonides—a Greek poet during the fifth and sixth centuries BC—and is often referred to as the “loci” method. Memory greats swear by this method, like the 2006 World Memory Champion, Clemens Mayer, who memorized 1,040 random digits in a half hour. The great news is that you don’t have to be a memory genius to pull this off. Experts believe that a person with an average memory can use the loci method to memorize the sequence of a shuffled deck of cards in less than an hour. So, what are we waiting for?
Walk around your kitchen and pick ten “locations” where you will store imaginary information. Examples would be the microwave, the fridge, the kitchen sink, the kitchen table, and the bookshelf. Go around the room and write them down on a paper numbered one to ten. Done? Okay, let’s say you need to memorize the five stages of grief for social studies class tomorrow: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Start with the first location: the microwave.
The second location is the fridge, for Anger. Picture the Incredible Hulk walking up to your fridge and slamming his green fists into the double doors, ripping off the doors, and walking out of the kitchen with the refrigerator doors dangling like bracelets on his wrists. Anger.
The third location is the kitchen sink. Visualize your little sister standing next to the sink expressionless and bashing the sink to smithereens with a metal bar that keeps growing bigger and bigger as she continues to bash. Bar-gain-ing, get it?
Almost there. The fourth location is the kitchen table, and the grief stage is depression. Visualize yourself sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal when suddenly a meteor crashes through your roof and smashes through your table, leaving a huge crater, a “depression,” in your kitchen linoleum. Depression.
The last one is Acceptance, and the fifth location is the bookshelf. Visualize a line of a dozen or so ants walking across the edge of the bookshelf. Now, picture yourself pulling out a massive lumberjack axe and whacking the shelf to bits as a way of getting rid of the ants. Axe-cept-ants. Well done!
It may sound like I have a lot of pent-up rage (whaddaya mean, you think I’m angry, huh, huh, huh?!?!), but it’s actually all part of the strategy. The stranger, messier, and more ridiculous the image, the easier it will be for your brain to remember. Now that you have the five locations filled with these five stages of grief, go around and visualize each one three times more—the Nile in your microwave, the Incredible Hulk at your fridge, your sister bashing the sink with a bar, the crater in your linoleum, and the axe chopping the ants to bits: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. As unforgettable as these images might seem, reviewing them over and over is key if you want to retain them for any length of time, so please don’t skimp on that last critical step.
This technique can be used for more than just lists of words. It works for remembering historical figures, lines of speeches or poems, phone numbers, locker combinations—the possibilities are endless. To make it even easier on yourself, use the same ten locations each time you have something to memorize; that way you only need to remember what was in the location. If you are memorizing a list with more than ten items, fill up your “kitchen” and then move down the hall to the family room for ten more locations. Superstars of this method have developed up to hundreds of mental locations to store information; maybe you should start building yourself a mental mansion. (, , , )
Don’t stop with these ideas—there are plenty more out there! The key here is creativity. Don’t worry about classmates thinking Flap Happy looks silly. When you’re pulling amazing grades and someday making your place in the world, they’ll be the first to boast that they used to sit next to you in algebra.
Few people take advantage of their eardrums when it comes time to study, or, if they do, they’re filling them with random noise instead of study material. In the last chapter, you learned that brains like patterns; but brains also like repetition (which is why I keep repeating what you’ve learned in earlier chapters—I know, I know, your awe at this sort of brilliance has me fairly blushing).
FOREIGN TRANSLATIONS is one way to make learning another language a lot less foreign. At some point in every American’s life, one should endeavor to learn—oh no, not the f-word—yes, a foreign language. For those of you reading this who are linguistically privileged to have lived in a non-English-speaking country or bilingual home, props to you. Regardless, this little technique should be helpful for all when it comes time to learn a new language.
Grab a handheld recorder and a pen and paper, and write down a list of sentences you are trying to learn in, let’s say, German. You may think you only need to learn vocabulary words to get by, but trust me on this one when I say writing down a full sentence will make learning and using the language that much easier later on. It could be something as simple as “The kite is yellow.” It doesn’t have to be complicated when you’re starting out. The point is for your brain to hear how the flow of a real conversation sounds in that language, since that’s the ultimate goal of learning a language—having a conversation.
The second step of this best-case scenario is that you are able to find a native German speaker nearby. If you can’t find a native speaker, track down your teacher or a German foreign exchange student or someone who speaks German with relative authenticity. Ask the speaker to read the sentence aloud into the recorder at a normal speed three times, pausing for a moment between each repetition. After he has repeated that sentence three times, speak into the recorder giving the translation of what he said once. Do this for all of the sentences that you wrote down and thank the speaker very much. That’s the easy part.
The even easier part is plugging in headphones and pressing play … repeat, play … repeat, play … repeat, play. When you’re eating breakfast, waiting for the subway, walking through the mall, play … repeat. After hearing the sentences a dozen times, try to say the sentences with the recording. If you’re afraid you’ll look crazy, just mouth the words. (Or, better yet, hang a sign around your neck that says “not crazy” and speak even louder. If nothing else, it will guarantee you a seat on the subway.)
An American friend of mine lived in Korea for a couple years and hailed this technique as the best way to learn a language since sliced kimbap. She didn’t speak a word of Korean when she moved there, but after a short time using Foreign Translations she found that Koreans complimented her frequently on the authenticity of her pronunciation: a taxi driver was stunned by the obviously American girl asking him in perfect Korean to please take a left at the next intersection. She said the expression on his face was hilarious, very “deer in the headlights” … except from the other side of the steering wheel.
An eternity from now, in the far distant future when you turn 30, your brain will shrink a quarter of a percent in mass each year, losing about 7,000 irreplaceable brain cells a day. Go sudoku puzzles!
Foreign Translations is an excellent tool for learning a foreign language because it will help you learn the syntax, pitch, and rhythm of a language alongside vocabulary simultaneously. Most foreign language CDs only give the foreign sentence once and then the definition (to save on space, most likely), but this is far less effective than the repetition method of stating the new sentence three times. Your brain needs new things repeated with great frequency to really get it, so it’s critical that you hear a new piece of information at least three times before moving on to the next piece of information, especially if it involves your tongue learning to do somersaults in a whole new language. And, the best news of all? If you can talk your classmates into Foreign Translations, each of you can take a chapter and then swap recordings. Obviously, this tool is strongly Auditory. However, even if that isn’t your primary learning mode I still recommend you give it a try. I’ve used this method myself (and I barely even score a point on the Auditory learning scale), and it’s now my favorite way to learn a new language. (, , , )
THE PRICE IS CHEAP is the name of your very own game show to success. And, it’s true—the price of this game is cheap. Since you already have your handheld recorder from Foreign Translations, this won’t cost you a dime (assuming you’re using rechargeable batteries like the environmentally aware consumers we should all strive to become). The game is quite simple: Write a list of questions and answers about whatever it is you are studying. Then, read a question into the recorder, such as “What four ways does my brain learn new information?” Pause for two or three seconds, and give the answer (which of course you know to be color, movement, sound, and mnemonics). If you want a two-fer, open up your Rainbow Notes and simply read through your colorful new vocabulary words and their definitions, with the proper pauses of course so you can quiz yourself. Your Entertaining Underlining or Paper Flaps can also come in handy here. You’ve already done the work organizing what you want to memorize; this is just another way of getting it into your head. And when it comes to studying, variety is a good thing. Drag this recorder with you wherever you go and try to answer each question (or define each word) before hearing the answer. You may need to hit pause so you have time to give your answer before you interrupt yourself. Just don’t cheer too loudly when you get the answer right; you might scare the folks in line next to you. (, , , )
TECHNO TROUBADOUR is a sure way to memorize that psalm, poem, or speech you need for class. If it’s a particularly long piece, break it down into smaller chunks of one to two minutes or less so that your brain can digest it one bite at a time. (There’s a reason phone numbers have a dash in the middle—our brains like taking little bites.) Give the name of the passage and its author or address, then read using the most enthusiasm you can muster. Go overboard. Real recording artists look ridiculous when they are laying down a track of spoken word. (I know this because I used to be one.) Try to focus on memorizing just one bite at a time and remember to review each section you’ve successfully memorized as frequently as possible so that your brain knows you want all the sections stored in your Long-Term Memory. For an added twist, consider swapping tapes if there are others in your class with the same assignment (something you can do for The Price Is Cheap as well). If nothing else, it will force you to make your tape sound more interesting. (, , , )
Your brain is 80 percent water. Instead of complaining you feel foggy in the morning, maybe you should say you’re feeling soggy.
Putting your homework on a little pocket recorder is a great way to make use of long car rides, treadmills, insomnia, or mindless tasks where you need your hands but could use something to occupy your thoughts. There are just two things to keep in mind with these sound-related suggestions. First, you need to be attentive while listening. Playing the record while you sleep will not help you learn the material and will only infuriate your roommate. (In fact, it might even cause you to sleep fitfully and wake up exhausted.)
Second, no matter how much you like listening to yourself, if you drone on in a monotone for hours you will definitely lose interest. So, speak with enthusiasm. If you really want to get creative (and can afford the time), feel free to add an instrumental background or sound effects that emphasize what you’re learning. You can even make up a cheesy song as a way of learning random facts. Since this is a little pocket recorder, no one will hear it but you—so do whatever is necessary to learn the material. As long as your creative extras don’t distract from the main point, just about anything is game!
In fourteen hundred and ninety-two … how come we remember the date Columbus set sail for the New World? How come we don’t remember other important dates, such as the year the Revolutionary War ended, when the Mona Lisa was painted, or when the Berlin Wall fell? It’s because of a sing-song rhyme, called a mnemonic. A mnemonic is a lyrical device (often using rhyme or meter) that helps the brain remember something. It’s a powerful tool that has people like my mom still singing the advertising jingle for Fruit Stripe Gum nearly fifty years after she first heard it. Rhymes get very little respect when it comes to the learning process, but they definitely play a key role in helping us find patterns in information, making new information easier to remember. This is also why you are able to remember nursery rhymes from a decade or two ago and not necessarily your locker combination. You may find that rhythm and song work equally as well, so here are a few ideas.
RHYME LINERS may not seem new (since you probably already knew the Columbus example I used earlier), but I’ve included a couple of tips to help you make your own. Choose a date, person, or fact you are trying to remember, and write a silly sentence with a rhyming couplet (1492 … ocean blue). The rhyme doesn’t have to be metrically accurate or even elegant, but you do want one of the key details to be one of the rhyming words. For instance, if the line had been In 1492 Columbus boarded his boat, to see how far around the world his wooden home could float, it would be much harder to remember the date of his discovery, which is the key detail, because our brains want to focus on the fun part that rhymes: boat and float. So, start by picking the person or word that you want to remember, and then write a phrase with that key detail falling at the end of the line. Next, think about what words rhyme and relate to that key detail and pick a couple to experiment with as you write the second half of the sentence. As long as the sentence helps you remember what you need, it’s fair game. You should have heard the ones I came up with to remember Impressionist painters in college—terrible puns and super corny rhymes. But, they worked, I got an A, and look at me now (yes, I know … still writing terrible puns and super corny rhymes). (, , , , )
Just in case you were wondering, it is not actually possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum warns all his brainy buddies that you are about to tickle yourself and they just ignore you. How rude.
LEARNED LETTERS uses alliteration to help you keep track of a string of key details. At some point, an English teacher probably taught you about alliteration, but if not, don’t stress. Alliteration is simply when the first letter of a group of words is the same for many of the words in a series. The words don’t need to rhyme, but because they are punctuated by a repeating letter they will definitely have a rhythm. And, having one primary letter will help you remember the important details. Here’s an example: Pope John Paul II Pleaded with Parliament to Protect Prenatal People. (The alliteration here is with the letter P, but you knew that.) Just make sure, as you did in Rhyme Liners, that the important info you are trying to remember is part of the alliteration. (, , , , )
MEMORABLE MELODIES borrows a memorable tune (such as the Gilligan’s Island theme song, Jingle Bells or Dancing Queen), and rewrites the lyrics to fit the subject. Again, you’ll want your key details to be repeated through the song to help you memorize them, but any ridiculous filler you want to add will make the learning more fun. And, nearly any time something is fun, you have a better chance of remembering it. The music will actually help you build rhyme or rhythm into what you’re trying to learn, but be warned: this method is quite successful and you may remember the song for a long, long time. (, , )
In all you’ve seen, remember this: finding time to rhyme what you’re learning may refine your line of thinking and make your study time primely sublime.
1. There are four ways I can influence my memory patterns to help my brain store and recall new information.
2. Color gets my visual senses stimulated to learn.
3. Movement keeps me active and alert.
5. Mnemonics get my tongue doing somersaults (not to mention my brain).
THE MACK SLACKER
