Mems aim to forge vivid connections in the mind between concepts that we may experience as meaningless. Drivers sony vaio. They aim to take connections that are difficult to remember (the link between two names; the connection between a technical term and its meaning; the meaning of a foreign word) and transform that connection into a form which we are good at remembering. They do this often via wordplay, combined with vivid imagery. How does it work?

Let's imagine I'm trying to remember that Riyadh is the capital of Saudi Arabia. Software testing an istqb-iseb foundation guide pdf download. This is tricky, because Riyadh and Saudi Arabia have no real detail (in my imagination, at least) – they're basically just sounds, so entirely unmemorable. How to link them together vividly? One user of online learning platform Memrise suggests we 'They tried to make me go to Riyadh, and I SAUDI no, no, no'. Because I know the song, this immediately summons a comic and memorable image into my mind. The capital of Equatorial Guinea is Malabo. Another user has created with the caption 'Around the EQUATOR, the GUINEA-pigs usually smoke MARLBORO.'

The comic image acts as bridge in the mind between the country and its capital, between Equatorial Guinea and Malabo. Imagine it clearly, and the memory sticks. When you next meet someone from Equatorial Guinea, the chances are that the image of a cigarette-smoking guinea pig will pop into your mind, and you'll be able intelligently to inquire whether they live in Malabo. Screenshot courtesy of Memrise.com; created by An enormous amount of knowledge, both taught in school and elsewhere, is in the form of factual connections. Words connect to definitions, chemicals to their formulae, countries to their capitals, battles to their generals, Kings and Queens to their dates or reigns and so on.

The key is to make these connections – and a huge proportion of them can benefit from the use of mems. To explore this approach, try our first challenge on Memrise: a. You can also battle other Telegraph readers on the leaderboards to see how well you've learned.

Over the course of the next week weeks, this blog will explore different ways to use memory techniques to make revision quicker, more effective and more enjoyable. As we approach the Easter holidays, we'll target these challenges directly at GCSE and A-level exams. Ed Cooke is a Grandmaster of Memory, and is co-founder and CEO of Memrise. More by this author.

Ed Cooke on Memory 02.18.11 A couple years ago my friend and mentor in all things mnemonic (and star of Moonwalking with Einstein ), Ed Cooke, appeared in a British documentary called The Mentalists. Memrise was founded by Ed Cooke and Greg Detre. [1] [2] Memrise is headquartered in England. Memrise uses what's called 'elaborate encoding' to help users remember different concepts.