Memory athlete, Sancy Suraj, left ACJC students with some useful memory improvement techniques.
“I decided to focus on the basics, teaching them the link-story technique, number shape and vocab-link technique,” said Sancy Suraj who is the founder of memory training company Pinnacle Minds.
The techniques covered was the link-story techniques to memorize lists, the vocab- link technique to memorize vocabulary and definitions and the number shape technique.
Here is the summary of one of the memory techniques taught during the lecture:
Link-Story Technique to Memorize The Reactivity Series
To use the link Link-Story Technique:
- Potassium: Potato
- Sodium: Soda
- Calcium: Milk Carton
- Magnesium: Magazine
- Aluminium: Aluminium Foil
- Carbon: Car
- Zinc: Zebra
- Iron: Ironing Board
- Tin: Tin
- Lead: Pencil Lead
- Hydrogen: Hi
- Copper: Cop
- Silver: Solver Dollar
- Gold: Gold Bar
- Platinum: Plate
Here is what you do:
- Visualize a potato (Potassium), then put a can of soda (Sodium) on the potato.
- Next visualize, putting a carton of milk (Calcium) on the can of soda.
- Next, imagine placing a magazine (Magnesium) on top of the milk carton.
- Then wrap the magazine with aluminium foil (Aluminium).
- Next place a toy car (Carbon) on top of the aluminium foil.
- Next, visualize a zebra (Zinc) chewing on the toy car.
- Now, visualize placing an Ironing board (Iron) on top of the zebra and imagine ironing your shirt on the ironing board.
- Imagine putting the iron in a big tin can (Tin).
- Next, imagine placing pencil lead (Lead) in the tin.
- Besides the tin filled with pencil lead, visualize your friend saying hi (Hydrogen).
- Next, visualize a cop (Copper) placing handcuff behind you’re friend’s back. You friend got arrested because he said ‘hi’ to you.
- Visualize a large silver dollar (Silver) next to the cop.
- Imagine, hundreds of gold bar (Gold) stacked next to the cop.
- Visualize yourself taking the gold bar and place it on a plate (Platinum).
The key is to link each word to the next. The more visual your images are, the better and longer you will be able to remember it. Here are a couple of tips to help you remember the metals in the reactivity series using the link-story technique:
- Always visualize the words.
- Make your link between the words funny.
Do not use the acronym method for memorizing the reactivity series. The acronym method is when you take the first letter of each word to form a story or poem.
Here is the reason. Look at the reactivity series below:
- Potassium
- Sodium
- Calcium
- Magnesium
- Aluminium
- Carbon
- Zinc
- Iron
- Tin
- Lead
- Hydrogen
- Copper
- Silver
- Gold
- Platinum
Now, let’s say you create a story like, “Please Stop Calling Me A Cute Zebra I Taste Like Hot Chocolate Sweet Green Pasta.” There are 3 ‘C’, copper, calcium and carbon. Which one comes first? That is the issue with the acronym method. There are also 2 ‘S’, Silver and Sodium. Again, which one comes first in the story? By using the Link-Story Technique, you eliminate this confusion. So start using the Link-Story Technique to memorize the reactivity series today!