When they test whether you have a good memory, in reality they usually do not test all of your memory, but only your ability to use visual and auditory memory. Typical exercise:
How to check if your memory is good? Have someone write 20 simple nouns on paper for you. For example, Spoon, Bed, Guitar, Ship, Shower, Apple, Lamp, Syllable, Car, Pen, Ear, Knife, Box, Wallpaper, Phone, Dog, Illustration, Scissors, Notepad, Pants. Study the list for a minute and a half, or have someone read it to you slowly two or three times. Try to reproduce the words in order in writing or orally. If you memorize 18 to 20 words, you have an excellent memory. 15 to 17 is a good memory. From 10 to 14 memorized words is an indicator that your memorization abilities are average. Less than 10 — you do not know how to use your memory.
At first, there is an appeal to visual memory, later — to auditory. All.
In each person, all types are developed differently, as a rule, one or two, less often three, types of memory are most developed. For example, a person will remember this or that information better if he can read it, another — after listening to the same text. It is very rare to meet people in whom all types of memory would be equally well developed, while it is important to know that your memory can and should be developed.
Improving your memory involves very different things. The main ones are:
- Healthy lifestyle, especially sleep;
- Strengthening memory with medicines;
- Special memorization techniques;
- Memory training.
Special memorization techniques
What for? Creating Motivation. If you need to learn a difficult lesson by tomorrow, first you need to absolutely clearly tell yourself why it is for you today that this is seriously extremely important and simply necessary. If there is no exciting goal, then in extreme cases you can “turn” — into a teacher, into a great mathematician, into an interlocutor for a Martian who flew to Earth, met us and we have to explain something to him … Finally, one can imagine himself and the simplest, most probable thing: that tomorrow they will be called to the board.
We replace rote learning with analysis and understanding. Let’s try for at least two or three weeks not just to read the material and retell it in the mind, but first to work with the material: compare it with the past, divide it into parts, note the main thing, put meaning into every word of the textbook. Let’s not spare time: it will return to us in abundance.
A variant of this approach is short retelling. What is the common problem? We retell too close to the text, and for this we try to almost learn it by heart. Let’s try to limit ourselves in time: we take a three-minute hourglass, a stopwatch, or simply set an alarm clock in front of us. Three minutes is quite enough time to concisely, clearly and intelligibly retell the meaning of any educational text! A few weeks of such exercises with hours — and we will forever unlearn cramming lessons. But be sure to fit in three minutes, and at the same time do not miss anything really important!
Repetition. We use every opportunity to apply new knowledge. Beginning the paragraph, we repeat the previous one. Having met a half-forgotten term, we will return and restore its exact meaning in memory.
Memory training
Your memory can be developed, like other abilities. The most interesting thing is that no special techniques are usually required for this, memory is trained with the simplest exercises: memorizing poems, memorizing telephone numbers, memorizing a driving route so as to get to the right place without a navigator. Nevertheless, we will offer several typical useful workouts.
Scout training. Scouts train their memory like this.
- Matches. From the box, without looking, a handful of matches is taken and thrown onto the table. How much? You need to name the number of matches, throwing an instant glance at them.
- Coins. Different coins are placed in the box: for example, a kopeck, three kopecks, a nickel, a dime, and so on. The box is shaken, we look at the location of the coins and close the box. Now, from another set of coins, you need to lay out the order in which the coins are in the box.
- Face. A quick look at a person, after that you need to describe, or even better, sketch the face you saw … When you realize that you don’t remember the shape of the lips, the color of the eyes and what the parting looks like, your second look at the person will be much more accurate and attentive. Make eyeballs at a person until you can reproduce the person’s face in all the small details from memory.
You can come up with many such simple exercises, the main thing is not to forget about your intention to train your memory …
Other exercises:
Restoring the picture of the day. The exercise is to describe what your day was like minute by minute so as to have a complete picture of your day. If you have a memory gap, do something else, and after a quarter or half an hour, try to remember again.
Learning poetry. Weak memory can be developed by memorizing long poems and pages of prose. Nothing that the teacher did not set such a lesson, you can choose poetry and prose yourself or consult with one of your elders or friends. Whoever has the diligence to memorize one unassigned poem every week will develop his memory perfectly and enrich it with good verses — they will support a person all his life and bring joy all his life. In the first stages, choose those authors that you like best. Learn a couple of quatrains, and after a week without repeating, try to reproduce what you have learned by heart, increase the volume of poems, and then switch to authors whose works are less attractive to you — this will complicate the exercise.
Parsing difficult text. Choose a difficult book by an author known for his dry or abstract style. Start reading a dozen sentences. Then reread each phrase without moving on to the next until you have grasped the meaning of what you are reading. Take a dictionary if you need to. Read a dozen of the following phrases in the next day, rereading what you saw in the previous days. At the end of the first week, write down everything you remember. This is one of the best exercises for developing mental abilities. When you complete the exercise, you will need to repeat it at least 2 or 3 times a week.
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