You know the feeling: a word is on the tip of your tongue. Someone says the first sound and it pops out. The memory was there all along. You needed a cue.
Key idea
Memories are found through cues. The more cues you build while learning, the more ways back in you have.
- First letters: HOMES gives you the first letter of each Great Lake.
- Places: in a memory palace, each spot in the house is a cue.
- Pictures: a sketch you drew is a cue for the facts you labeled.
- Questions: a flashcard's front side is a cue for its back.
Worked example: Worked example
Leo forgets the third planet from the Sun until he pictures the planets in a row from the Sun outward: Mercury, Venus... Earth! What served as his cue?
- Picturing the order gave him a path to follow.
- Each planet led to the next.
Answer: The order of the planets: each one cued the next.
Why it works
Every technique in this course builds cues: an acronym is a cue of letters, a palace is a cue of places, chunking makes a few big cues out of many small items.
Common mistake
Building only one cue. If that one fails, you are stuck. A sketch plus a sentence plus a place gives three roads in.