We are strong proponents of pre-reading, yet the issue is only briefly mentioned in our course. There is a good reason for it. There is no one good prereading strategy, but several recommended strategies for various scenarios. Instead of discussing various pros and cons I will describe “a day in my life”. My days are …
Retention vs analysis
When we measure retention we measure the amount of details we remember after reading an article. There has been a really great article explaining some strategies to actually learn from an article. Usually learning from what we read is a subject of advanced course, but I think it makes sense to put some of the …
Learning to forgive and forget
We spend most of our time teaching people how to remember stuff. Occasionally students do not want to remember, but instead they want to forget. Many (all?) of us have dramatic or unpleasant experiences in our life that shape us as people and hunt us in our dreams. More often than not during our life …
High level visualization: Gaming and mental templates
I am using my own version of loci method I call “high-level visualization”, which is more of a game than a house. I have wrote several articles about this before. Here I address this method from a different angle. The loci method enables accurate memorization of huge amount of information. Most of memory champions use …
Continue reading “High level visualization: Gaming and mental templates”
Visualizing numbers
Many of our students go blank when viewing numbers, tables and formulas. Some they have necessary skills to understand the math, but cannot make it vivid enough. Here I address this and additional reasons. Short numbers. The simplest sort of a problem with numbers is a lack of interest. For me it is hard to remember …
Book exercise
In Anna’s course all the students occasionally read and memorize the same books. A typical book would be this book. It is very suited for speedreading: not too long, not too short, lots of details supported by common knowledge, informative and popular, simple but well-formulated text, short saccades. Try to train speedreading on this book …
Superlearner story: Marina
The stories of various people we teach may prove interesting to you. While we change the names, most of other facts are true. Probably some of you will recognize some of the people behind the stories. We ask you not to disclose their identity. The first superlearner whom we can tell about we will call …
Adapting reading style to material
Recently I was asked a strange question “How do you read something you are not interested in remembering?”. Originally I dismissed the question as unreasonable, but after some analysis I decided that the question is very good and deserves a proper response. When constructed this course we focus on people reading the material in order …
Getting stuck with visualization
About 1% of our students get stuck with visualization. They either cannot get into the visualization mode and see pitch black, or they cannot get out of visualization mode and experience vivid hallucinations. In both cases, they need to address this course creatively. If you have trouble getting into visualization, this may mean that your …
Advanced memorization exercise
Many of you have wondered how to memorize abstract notions. I suggest to do this together. Take this article. It should be important for virtually any superlearner, since it explains why smart people make mistakes. Now, use your markers skills to remember everything in the article. Take your time – there are many markers to …
