trick with human memory

Question

I'd like to share some my thoughts that bother me last time. I've found that I can remember some CR and RC for a long time and only a few words are enough to recall all passages and even answers on questions. But sometimes I cannot recall main information even after repeat reading. This phenomenon enforced me to recall an old psychological trick. Once my friend in the school said me that he had an unique memory and can remember any 50 words that I would tell him. I thought it was a joke, but to my great surprise he repeated all 50 words in the same sequence without any mistakes! After this amazing show he told me a secret..... Maybe somebody want to try? no more than 2 sec per word to remember

35 words: ~1 min. pear, car, church, mixer, notebook, parachute, cheese, luster, chief, Sun, bug, hair, water, house, cat, MBA, brick, elephant, death, library, hole, book, dean, dinosaur, soldier, cherry, shop, bus, window, rat, ball, food, iPod, salary, table. minimize the window with the post and write out all words in the same sequence.... ..................................... are there no mistakes? Congrats, you are a brilliant man!!! Do not read next text. I will tell you later the secret of the perfect memory and my thoughts about relation between this trick and GMAT RC/CR..... Yours Walker :wink:

michaelny2001 · Answer

Walker,

These are 35 words that have no connection among themselves. How can anybody remember them on the spot??? If there is such trick PLEASE teach us, cuz i am sure many og us struggle with RC and CR not because we can't think stright, but because we forget the essence of the paragraph. So please don't keep us waiting man.

Thanks.

walker · Answer

Michaelny2001, give me please a few hours, maybe anybody has such perfect memory :roll:

terp26 · Answer

that's impressive. I don't think I can do it but I can imagine from psych class that you could break them into chunks. Let's say 7 I think is the most one normal person can usually juggle. Then create a story that plays out within those 7 to remember the words. Then do the same to connect those to the other chunks. This is probably not the method because I dont think I could do this in 2 minutes , but I guess with practice people can.

mymba99 · Answer

curious to know the trick..

walker · Answer

it is time to unveil the secret.... Terp26, you are very close!
Yes, the main idea is to create an unbelievable story that glue down all words.

the story should be characterize following major ideas:
- a strong logic stem
- the more unbelievable, striking the better
- imagination and astonishment

I try begin the story....

once I found a huge pear that could crush even the most powerful car. The shape and the size of the pear resembled the church in my town. I was angry and took a kitchen mixer to destroy the pear. After a week I found a huge endless hole inside the pear and a strange notebook that had keyboard with alien symbols and had a phrase on the screen: "take a parachute and jump".........

Guys, try again to remember 35 words :wink:

I guess it is very similar with GMAT reading when imagination, astonishment, logic stem can help memorize wield passages.... What do you think?

dushver · Answer

I completely agree, the words should make sense to you, as if the author is narrating the story. Else it is a collection of words and structured in an organised fashion.

Until you are able to think they way author is and get involved, making logical sense of the whole para would be a very daunting task. If you understand the story, it is easy to work out the interpretation and hence create a memory.

Good point walker!!

mymba99 · Answer

Cool. Thx Walker.
I think I came across this trick in my school days..never implemented it.

terp26 · Answer

+1 , yea that makes a lot of sense. Put the stem in your own words as you read (paraphrase) but as you do this exagerate or emphasize key words that you don't miss. For example, ALL of the people have brown hair, SOME have blue eyes. In your mind increase the volume whenever these limiting words come to you. After you do this as you read, go back and read it again quickly in your mind and reverse, so SOME have blue, ALL have brown.

Just an example for CR to help ingrain the stem in your head for those 2 minutes

Just an example for CR to help ingrain the stem in your head for those 2 minutes

suyashjhawar · Answer

This is the reason why i say Walker is Walker!Unlimited kudos Sir!!!

FN · Answer

damn i only remembered 20 of these words...

yellowjacket · Answer

I think I need to develop better story-telling skills.

That's a pretty interesting method though. Kudos!

chica · Answer

Yeah, it is a nice trick.. I was told about it at Uni.. I have never tried it though. But I think it works. I was talking to my friend the other day. She said she did some test on reading and did almost all questions correct. Though she did not get what it was all about. Trick - She is a math-lover. And she said that she was simply using connections between the words in the questions and in the passage..She treated the passage like a math problem.. I did not try the approach.. I think it is similar to the one described in the other post: to scan for Key Words and use them to answer questions. Some more thoughts on RC... (do not organize your AWA this way :wink:

) As for me to get the idea is the most important . LSAT passages are great help here. Frankly, GMAT passages are not that difficult when you go through LSAT RC sections. I was very frustrated at the beginning, cause some are pretty tough.. and I made lots mistakes. I remember one passage I could not get until I actually read the explanation to it. In LSAT reading section there are 4 passages (mostly long ones) and 35 minutes to finish (about 26-28 questions in general). But after some days of constant practice GMAT passages do not seem to be that bad at all. Practice is the best here.. It truly is. So, if you have time try that also. Oh, and some more tips 1.I do make notes (very quick ones and mostly for the main paragraph). I never get back to them (trying to understand what I wrote can take too much time :wink:

). But they are helpful cause you actually remember them. 2. Speed reading is must. Improve here. I have some docs I found on other forums and web sites. So if anybody needs them, let me know.. I will also try to go through them and organize a bit in the next couple of days. 3. Close reading is indeed very helpful. And it does work when you read close. Personally, I like those passages. They are cool. You can learn smth new from them 8-)

P.S. I actually noticed that RC and CR indeed stay in memory for a long time.. Sentence corrections... unless you missed something in the explanation before you will probably repeat your mistake.. So, I would suggest practice SC until you know you got the trick but pick new CR problems and RC passages for practice. Best of luck to everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!

walker · Answer

Thanks guys, I see that you like my story

Maybe I am not 100% confident how to apply this method to boring social passages but I have to add that "exaggeration", as mentioned Terp26 (+1), is a very helpful method to transform the boring passages into fascinating stories and to trigger our memory....

walker · Answer

Chica, thanks for your post! (+1) I would be very much obliged to you if you share the docs with us :roll:

buffdaddy · Answer

I read an article about the first female chess grandmaster and how she mastered chess based on memorizing chess "blocks" (collection of pieces). read more about her here https://www.susanpolgar.com/ .

Its funny, I sometimes wish my memory wasn't so good so I could do GMATPrep over and over and it would be an accurate indicator!

chica · Answer

Here you go..
I added to one doc the most intersting and valuable tips on RC and speed reading (you can find most of them on the ScoreTop forum- the links are attached)

Hope, this will be of some help.

sondenso · Answer

Hey Walker, it is long time to see you! :lol:

walker · Answer

I'm now preparing for TOEFL (16 May)

crejoc · Answer

It is an old thread, but found interesting

Yes i did, got all correct, and am here to share my logical connection of story..

A pear went in a car to a church, there is a mixer inside the church, the mixer is on a notebook , the notebook has a picture of a parachute, a man in the parachute eating cheese, that lusters, the man is a chief ( in army may be), he sees a sun so bright, he feels a big bug is crawling on the sun, the bug's hair is clearly visible, at the end of the hair is a water droplet, that water droplet dropped down to earth and shatterd a house, a cat ran out of the house in fear, which has a medal with MBA, stands on a brick, an elephant crushes the brick and the cat, cat dies- death and burried near by a library , a shelf in the library has a big hole , when looked in to the hole there is a book, when turned the first page, my college dean appears, he turns in to dinosaur , the dinosaur runs in a field with so many soldiers, one of the soldier is eating a cherry, the same cherry is sold in a shop, while a bus crashes the window of the shop, all rats in the shop runs , while one of it slids over a rolling ball( as jerry does), it sees a delicious food, the food is a picture found in my ipod, bought on my first salary, that got in hand over a table from my boss. I even typed it again without referring.

the technique used is associative memory technique, memory pegs can also be used for this.

trick with human memory

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