One is said to have
a good memory only if that person is able to memorise an information, retain it
and recall that information as and when required.
“You MUST remember
this”, a Teacher always finishes a lesson with this note and expects a students
to remember, but unconsciously forgets to tell them “HOW”!
“Knowble
Photographic Memory” which is based on Mnemonic Techniques is the answer to
this question.
Do
you remember, “Pandit Badri Prasad, Har Har Bole” mentioned
in Trigonometry chapter in NCERT books? Those memory tools, or mnemonics, have
helped kids memorize and recall mathematical operations for decades. Today,
researchers say that use of mnemonics helps students to “file” information more
effectively and later makes it possible for them to retrieve that information
more easily.
Introduction
What is Memory?
How does it work? Can Memory be increased? If yes, then how?
So
many questions arise in one’s mind when we start talking about Memory. The
topic itself is very intriguing for any person, young or old, male or a female,
student or a businessman. But, it holds lot of importance especially for all
Teachers and Students, who always are face to face with the issue of
‘Memorizing’, let it be anything from their syllabus. Other than Students, even
adults are depending on external sources to remember things like appointments,
phone numbers and important tasks etc, just because they are not confident of
their own memory or are afraid of forgetting!
As
Humans, we all are blessed with a brain, which scientifically has been proven
to have immense potential. All the gadgets, or computers on which we so
confidently depend upon to remember our appointments or phone numbers etc, are
designed and developed by none other than Humans! Then why can’t we be
confident of our own brains? What makes it seem difficult to memorize anything
or something in particular? Why some people are able to memorize things better
and quicker than others? Actually, it is nothing else other than the lack of
knowledge of how to put your Memory power in proper use.
Imagine
a Room, where you keep your things, but always in a random order. After some
time, if you need to find a thing in that room, you will need to spend a lot of
time and energy to locate that particular item, OR you may even have to turn
the room upside down and still give up because you can’t locate it. But, in a
Library, where there are thousands of books, why, to find a book, it takes
least effort and time? Just because the books are kept in a certain order and
each book has a reference card which mentions its right location on the
shelves.
Memory
is quite similar to the above example: you keep on dumping information, later
you may have to face a lot of problem in recalling that information, and you
may even end up saying that you have forgotten. But, if you store the
information in an organized manner, with proper references and links, recalling
that information, when needed, will not take much effort or time.
For
enhancing the Memory skills, it is necessary to understand that the best way to
register any new information in our brain is to associate that new information
with any existing information. This is exactly where Mnemonics play a very
important role. Mnemonics work on two basic Principles of Association and Visualisation.
Application of
Mnemonic Techniques:
Mnemonics
is highly applicable in memorizing any information.
·
As a student it helps you in memorizing and
recalling any related content, like history dates, periodic tables, chemical
equations, mathematical formulae, countries and their capitals, inventions and
their inventors, books and their authors, any chronological list, geography
maps, biological names, learning a new language, enhancing vocabulary…
·
As a professional it helps in memorizing and
recalling list of meetings, contact numbers, names of associates, email ids
etc.
Mnemonic
Techniques become more effective when the nature of content is abstract and
size of content is huge. Many students have used Mnemonic Techniques in
clearing competitive examinations like IAS/ICS, Engineering Entrance
Examinations, Pre Medical Tests, CAT, XAT, GMAT, GRE, TOEFL, GATE or any sort
of entrance examination. Individuals like Dr. Michaela Karsten, Dominic
O’Brien, Biswaroop Roy Chaudhary, Ravi Shankar Godara have got their names
registered in Guinness Book of World Records using these Mnemonic Techniques
only. Even thousands of students have got their names noted in academic circles
by memorizing almost impossible contents again by using the same techniques.
Some Examples of Mnemonic Techniques:
Some mnemonic tools based on the
technique of letter strategy (using acronyms and acrostics) are
"oldies but goodies" that teachers recall from their own school days.
Here are a few that "every good student" should remember!
- VIBGYOR: the colors in the spectrum of visible light in order: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red (that’s a very common example of acronym method, which we all have used)
- My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas: the nine planets in order: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto
- King Philip Came Over For Good Soup/Spaghetti: the taxonomic categories in biology: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species
- BHAJSA: the chronological list of Mughal Emperors: Babar, Humayun, Akbar, Jehangir, Shahjehan and Aurangzeb.
List of Methods used in Knowble
Photographic Memory:
METHOD
|
APPLICATION
|
Chain Method
|
To memorise information structured in long lists.
|
Rhyme Codes/ Shape Codes
|
To memorise all sort of lists with higher precision and
objective type answers with points.
|
Acronym/Acrostic Method
|
To memorise information structured with names in chronological
order, like Prime Ministers of India, Mathematical Correlations, Dynasties,
Scientific Terminology, Properties of elements, Legal Laws etc.
|
PMS (Personal Meaning System)
|
To memorise information with “one to one” format, like countries
& their capitals, books and their authors, inventions and their inventors,
vocabulary enhancement, memorizing new language etc.
|
Map Grid System
|
To memorise all sort of geographical maps.
|
Phonetic Method
|
To memorise all information structured with numbers, like
history dates and events, periodic table, mathematical tables and formulae
|
Submarine Method
|
To memorise information with subjective nature, like theory with
illustrations and long answers.
|
