GATE: How to Memorise Things
From Pharmpedia
Dear Students,
When you are preparing for a competitive exam like GATE you have to concentrate on a number of subjects at a time and do a lot of learning. One big challenge here is not how much you learn but how much you remember. What I would like to do is to help you remember well the things which you have learnt well. The tips that I am going to give you are tips which I have read in a book titled “ Introduction to Memory Techniques ’’ written by Biswaroop Roy Chowdary , A memory specialist and a National Record Holder in India as per Limca Book of Records.
I will tell you very briefly only those memory tips that we are going to use.
- Association: We have to associate what we are now learning with something that we have already learned.
- Exaggeration: Our brain tends to take the things in exaggerated form much more quickly and also retains it much longer in our conscious mind.
- Picture: We must form a mental image of what we are trying to remember as images are remembered better. If the image is that of a thing in motion then it is all the more better.
- Oddities : Brain remembers odd and silly things better, so we must create an image that is odd and silly.
Keeping these few tips in mind let us proceed to the next step. We will adopt a method which has all the above ingredients and use that method in remembering some things.
The Number – Rhyme Method
This is the fastest method of generating codes. In this method we will use the pronunciation of the number in order to decide their mental images. For each number we think of a word which rhymes with it. Then we use the rhyming words to remember different issues which are placed in a numbered order. Let me explain. Sun rhymes with one and shoe rhymes with two and so on. So let us set up a mental memory code each for the first 10 numbers.
- one Sun
- two shoe
- three tree
- four door
- five knife
- six Vicks
- seven Heaven
- Eight plate
- Nine wine
- ten Hen
Let me explain this process with the following list of Autoimmune diseases.
First let us know what is an autoimmune disease.
The body is normally able to distinguish its own antigens (self) from all others (nonself) and does not mount an immunological attack against them. This phenomenon is called tolerance. Sometimes the body loses its ability to distinguish between self and nonself. This autoimmunity is a response by antibodies or sensitized T-cells against a person’s own tissue antigens.
Coding
| autoimmune disease |
code word |
Description |
| Addison’s disease | One-SUN | Destruction of adrenal gland cells that produce cortical hormones |
| Autoimmune hemolytic anemia | Two-shoe | Synthesis of antibodies against own red blood cells |
| Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus | three-tree | Destruction of pancreatic islet cells that produce hormones and insulin |
| Goodpastures syndrome | Four-door | Damage to basement membranes but most symptoms results from attack on glomeruli of kidney |
| Grave’s disease | Five-knife | Binding of antibodies to receptors for thyroid stimulating hormones leads to overstimulation of thyroid activity |
| Idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpuria | Six-Vicks | Dectruction of blood platelets |
| Myasthenia gravis | Seven-heaven | Blockage of acetylcholinesterase receptors prevents transmission of nerve signals |
| Rheumatoid arthritis | Eight- plate | Inflammation of joints due to deposition of complexes of IgG and anti-IgG |
| Rheumatic fever | Nine-wine | Antibodies produced against streptococcal infection are also capable of reacting with antigenic determinant sites on heart muscle cells |
| Systemic lupus erythematosus | Ten-hen | Antigen- antibody complexes(including antibodies against RNA, IgG, RBC, platelets and chromosomes) are deposited in many locations, triggering inflammation; complexes containing antibodies to DNA are often deposited in kidney. |
Next Step
The next step is to take one by one the disease and create a mental image that associates the number and the disease and if possible the description of the disease
I will try to give some images but you may create your own images. The funnier or the more ridiculous the image the better it will be remembered.
- One-Sun-SUN is for Addison which destroys adrenal cells.
- Two-Shoe - Tiny shoes are circulating in the blood and they are crushing the RBC- causing hemolytic anemia.
- Three-Tree - A huge tree grew up in the liver. Its shadow made the islet cells to die and caused diabetis mellitus which is insulin dependent.
- Four-Door -The door to the pasture got destroyed causing Goodpasture’s disease . The door to the basement also was destroyed leading to germs destroying the glomeruli in the kidney.
- Five-Knife - A man was stabbed with a knife and sent to his grave, after he caused graves disease in his friends. He caused his friends to become very bloated because of over stimulated thyroid.
- Six- Vicks - Vicks was taken into a syringe by a nurse; it was melted and was injected into a patient; poor fellow his platelets got killed and he developed thrombocytopenia purpuria
- Seven- heaven - From the grave people go to heaven. But for those people in whom nerve signals are blocked they cannot communicate and so, no heaven for them. People of myasthenia gravis can not go to heaven.
- Eight – plate - People with Rheumatoid arthritis cannot sleep on beds because of their inflamed joints . So they are sleeping in large plates.
- Nine- wine - Rhematic fever affected people are drunk; they took so much wine that their body cannot distinguish between germ cells and its heart cells. How sad! Rhematic fever affected people are walking in a wobbly manner ; so drunken !
- Ten – Hen - The hen is having inflammations all over its body. It has deposits of complexes. The hen’s blood got spoiled and it has boils all over its body.
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