Viola’s Memory Strategy

 This blog is about memory strategies.

   These strategies depend on connections that you make in order to remember the information. The essence is to make the connections as absurd, exaggerated or unusual as much as possible. It will help you retrieve information as these connections can leave a deeper impression.

   For me, I have a read/write learning preference. At first I do not know whether these strategies will work for me as I rarely try to remember things by making connections. I am used to remembering things by repetition.

   I try acronyms in my ECN class. ECN class is fact-based and there are lots of terms to remember for each chapter. So I hope that the acronym strategy can help me to remember these terms.

   Here are the steps for acronym. First, I list the terms that I want to remember. Then I underline the first letter in each word. Next, I try to arrange the letters in an order that creates a word. I stare at the list for quite well. Unfortunately, I fail to make up a word to help me to remember.

The problem is that the initial letters are just random, which makes it really hard to create a word. As I am an international student, English is not my mother tongue. So I am not as sensitive as native English-speakers to English words. All in all, this strategy does not work very well for me. 

Then I try another strategy called the link system. I also apply the strategy to my ECN class. Then I find this one is easier for me to complement. Here are the steps. First I select a word to remember. Then I create an image that can be pictured that looks like or sounds like the term. Next step is to visualize an absurd picture intersecting the images.

  I select the word monopoly to remember. Monopoly means an industry with a single producer. Mono looks like “one” and poly both looks like and sounds like “play”. Then there is a picture in my head. There is only one child playing in an amusement park. He can enjoy all the fairgrounds ride, shows, refreshments and other entertainments within the park. This process really helps me to remember this term. Then another word “oligopoly” seems easier for me to remember. Oligopoly means industry with a small group of producers. “Oli” sounds like “wuli”, which is a Korean word that means “we”. Then the word looks like “we go play”. The picture in my head then changes. There is a group of children playing in the amusement park. They share all the facilities there. 

 This strategy works better for me. Everybody has infinity imagination. So creating “links” is much easier to create a word with all the random initials of the terms. With more practice, I find it even much easier for me to use the link system to remember terms. Whenever I think of a word, there is a picture in my head. This is quite vivid and it is just easy to recall. I just find it difficult to forget.

I believe that everyone can benefit from the link system.