While the memorisation of a loved one s birthday is easy enough with the help of a prominently placed kitchen calendar and picking up on the blatant hints, accurately remembering academic material is another thing altogether. Once the text is fully understood through careful reading and revision, you are free to memorise key facts using the following tried and tested techniques.
Acronyms: A series of important words can be memorised by using the first letter of each word to form an easily recalled set of letters. E. g. a famous example is HOMES, which contains the initial letter of each of the American Great Lakes – Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie and Superior. Acronyms are easier to remember if you try for a meaningful world. SMOEH just doesn’t glide off the tongue. However, even thinking up acronyms can be helpful – the more you think about the subject, the more you will remember.
Acrostics: Similar to the acronymic techniques except a memorable sentence is created rather than a word. And so again using the example of the Great Lakes Hairy Orange Monsters Escape Sometimes. Whoever said learning isn t fun
Rhyming: The following is a popular example of this technique – One is bun, two is shoe, three is tree, four is door, five is hive, six is sticks, seven is heaven, eight is plate, nine is line, ten is hen. Want to remember the EU s fifth largest economy Simply picture a spaniard poking a hive and you won t forget in a hurry.
Image Linking: A rudimentary technique but one that is very effective and used by many people in everyday life. For example, if you wanted to memorise in order the following words: Einstein, blue, mercury, receptacle; simply create a mental image of Einstein in a blue jacket pouring mercury into a receptacle. As is the case with most memorisation techniques, the more outlandish the image or phrase you create, the more memorable it becomes.
