These techniques require a bit more work, and some practice, before you will fully see the effects but they are proven methods and worth trying. You probably won't master these the first time around, but keep trying and you will reap the benefits!
Room | Journey | Key words | Chain | Number/rhyme
Room
Most effective for storing lists of unlinked information (the Journey method is most effective for storing lists of related items). Select any location that you have spent a lot of time in and know well.
Imagine yourself walking through the location, seeing clearly defined places (the door, sofa, refrigerator, shelf, etc.). Imagine yourself putting objects that you need to remember into each of these places by walking through this location. The technique works by associating familiar images with those objects. To recall information, simply take a tour around the room in your mind, visualising the known objects and their associated images.
| For example: You need to remember George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon. To do this, you could imagine opening the the door of your room and seeing a dollar bill stuck in the door frame; when you open the door Jefferson is reclining on the sofa and Nixon is eating out of the refrigerator. |
(You can expand this technique for sub-topics. Use a door off the main room - create one if there isn't one in real life! - to add more information about a related topic.)
Journey
Similar to Room, but using a familiar route (moving location) rather than a room (static location). The journey method is based on using landmarks on a journey that you know well. It could be your journey to school, the route you use to get to the front door when you get up in the morning, the route to visit your parents, or a tour around a holiday destination. It could even be a journey around the levels of a computer game.
Start by writing down the major landmarks on your route. Think of these as "stops". You can then associate these "stops" with information or objects.
| For example: If you wanted to remember the following shopping list: coffee, carrots, bread, kitchen roll, fish, pork chops, soup, fruit, toilet paper you might fix the items to your journey to the grocery store. The images could appear as: - Front door - spilt coffee grains on the doormat
- Car - carrots lying on the front seat
- End of the road - an arch of French bread over the road
- Past garage - with sign wrapped in kitchen roll
- Under railway bridge - from which haddock and cod are dangling by their tails
- Past church - in front of which a pig is doing karate, breaking boards
- Under office block - with a soup slick underneath: my car tyres send up jets of tomato soup as I drive through it
- Past car park - with apples and oranges tumbling from the top level
- Grocery store car park - a toilet parked in the space next to my car
(Thanks to MindTools for this example.) |
This is an extremely effective method of remembering long lists of information. With a sufficiently long journey you could, for example, remember elements on the periodic table, lists of Kings and Presidents, geographical information, or the order of cards in a shuffled pack of cards.
The system is also extremely flexible. Because each list is associated with a different journey, you can memorize many lists at the same time without getting them confused.
To remember many items, just use a longer journey with more landmarks.
To remember a short list, only use part of the route!
Key words
For foreign language vocabulary Select a key word in English that sounds or looks like the new word.
Then imagine a picture which involves the new word with both the English key word and the foreign word.
| For example: Consider the Spanish word cabina which means phone booth.
For the English keyword, you might think of "cab in a ...". You could then invent an image of a cab trying to fit in a phone booth. |
When you see the word cabina on the test, you should be able to recall the image of the cab and you should be able to retrieve the definition phone booth.
Chain
For lists, ordered or unordered Create a story where each word or idea you have to remember triggers the next idea you need to remember.
| For example: If you had to remember the words Napoleon, ear, door and Germany, you could invent a story of Napoleon with his ear to a door listening to people speak in German. |
Number/rhyme
To remember lists in a certain order This is a "peg" system, where you "peg" information to a sequence of cues - in this case, the numbers 1-10.
At a simple level it can be used to remember things such as a list of English Kings or of American Presidents in their precise order. At a more advanced level it can be used to code lists of experiments to be recalled in a science exam.
You start with a number/rhyme sequence. Each number is linked or "pegged" to a rhyming word with a simple image attached to it.
The most common sequence is below, but you can make up your own:
- Bun
- Shoe
- Tree
- Door
- Hive
- Bricks
- Heaven
- Skate
- Line
- Hen
When you want to remember either a set number of facts, or a list of information in a certain order, link the rhyming images to pictures representing the things to be remembered.
For example, a list of ten Greek philosophers could be remembered as: - Parmenides
a BUN topped with melting yellow PARMEsan cheese - Heraclitus
a SHOE worn by HERACLes glowing with a bright LIghT - Empedocles
a TREE from which the M-shaped McDonalds arches hang hooking up a bicycle PEDal - Democritus
think of going through a DOOR to vote in a DEMOCRaTic election - Protagoras
a bee HIVE being positively punched through (GORed?) by an atomic PROTon - Socrates
BRICKS falling onto a SOCk (with a foot inside!) from a CRATe - Plato
a plate with angel's wings flapping around a white cloud - Aristotle
a friend called hARRY clutching a bOTtLE of wine possessively slipping on a SKATE - Zeno
a LINE of ZEN buddhists meditating - Epicurus
a HEN's egg being mixed into an EPIleptics's CURe
(Thanks to MindTools for this example.) |
This is an excellent method of ensuring that all the information is remembered - because gaps will be immediately apparent from the missing numbers.
As you can see, there are many tools and strategies which you can use to make learning both easier and more efficient.
There are many other tools out there - don't be afraid to try a few until you find the ones which work best for you!