Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

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morbeedo
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Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by morbeedo »

I've noticed that my ability to recall certain facts varies based on context. For example, I can sail through the World Capitals quiz on Sporcle, missing only the more obscure capitals of Oceania and The Caribbean - but if you randomly ask me to name the capital of Benin or even Nicaragua, I might draw a blank or take much longer to retrieve the data. It's as if my brain has indexed the information in a particular flow, so I'm more likely to recall Porto-Novo on Sporcle than, say, in a Jeopardy! game.

I guess one of those flash card apps would be better for drilling info, because the order is random, and the app will repeat the ones you've missed until you master them.

Has anyone else experienced this or thought about better ways to drill facts?
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triviawayne
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by triviawayne »

Everyone is different.

Many things I just have to picture in my head somehow, often there are things I can "see" because I can remember where I learned them, many other things it's just something else, including the repetition of trivia from doing so much of it.

Other things, I have to come up with something stupid to make it stick, like thinking of Napoleon checking out the Consumer Electronics Show...

CES

Corsica--where he was born
Elba--where he was exiled
Sardinia--where he died
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by MarkBarrett »

triviawayne wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:25 pm Everyone is different.

Many things I just have to picture in my head somehow, often there are things I can "see" because I can remember where I learned them, many other things it's just something else, including the repetition of trivia from doing so much of it.

Other things, I have to come up with something stupid to make it stick, like thinking of Napoleon checking out the Consumer Electronics Show...

CES

Corsica--where he was born
Elba--where he was exiled
Sardinia--where he died
Bad news and good news. Bad news - Napoleon did not die in Sardinia. The good news is St. Helena starts with an S.
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triviawayne
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by triviawayne »

MarkBarrett wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:30 pm
triviawayne wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 12:25 pm Everyone is different.

Many things I just have to picture in my head somehow, often there are things I can "see" because I can remember where I learned them, many other things it's just something else, including the repetition of trivia from doing so much of it.

Other things, I have to come up with something stupid to make it stick, like thinking of Napoleon checking out the Consumer Electronics Show...

CES

Corsica--where he was born
Elba--where he was exiled
Sardinia--where he died
Bad news and good news. Bad news - Napoleon did not die in Sardinia. The good news is St. Helena starts with an S.
what the frack did i type sardinia for??????? excel was really frying my brain today, really shouldn't have even been thinking about trivia when I wanted to step away from what I was doing at work.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by alietr »

Whatever you do, don't use the TPH Method.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by 1stlvlthinker »

alietr wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:18 pm Whatever you do, don't use the TPH Method.
Who is TPH? That could be any one of 7 billion people!
Now swimming in the J! pool.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by alietr »

1stlvlthinker wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:48 pm
alietr wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:18 pm Whatever you do, don't use the TPH Method.
Who is TPH? That could be any one of 7 billion people!
People? Tested Proven Hack.
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CasketRomance
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by CasketRomance »

1stlvlthinker wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:48 pm
alietr wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:18 pm Whatever you do, don't use the TPH Method.
Who is TPH? That could be any one of 7 billion people!
that is brilliant
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by Volante »

Mnemonics are also good, or coming up with creative visuals. Sg I believe mentioned using a 'tall stone pillar' for Tallinn, Estonia. (Sony forum era perhaps, I can't find it here.)
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by threearruda »

It's all about repetition and not rushing yourself, the way I see it. When I had a Samsung device I caught wind of mystcmage's cardset and app from right here on the board and drilled myself over a few months until I no longer had the device needed to use that app. Certainly helped a bit, but I was still just a novice/high school student at that point.

Now, I try and spend a few minutes per day combing through Ferrill/Crosby's Game Show Trivia book.. reading those pavlovs enough times will help them stick in my head.

But if your brain doesn't work like that, then yeah mnemonics can help too. One that helps me -- common hesitation word "uh" = Uranus - (William) Herschel. Another... think of Niels Bohr at the Super Bowl of Science (SB = Structure of an atom - Niels Bohr). All depends on how you prefer your learnin', I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by triviawayne »

CasketRomance wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 5:33 pm
1stlvlthinker wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:48 pm
alietr wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 4:18 pm Whatever you do, don't use the TPH Method.
Who is TPH? That could be any one of 7 billion people!
that is brilliant
I don’t get it...NHO TPH
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by seaborgium »

Volante wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 6:43 pm Mnemonics are also good, or coming up with creative visuals. Sg I believe mentioned using a 'tall stone pillar' for Tallinn, Estonia. (Sony forum era perhaps, I can't find it here.)
That wasn't me. I learned Tallinn from the anti-piracy question at the beginning of the DOS game "Welltris" (a two-and-a-half–dimensional sequel to Tetris). It would give you the flag of one of the (then) SSRs, and ask for the country, the capital, or the area, with the answer key to be found in the manual. Luckily those are facts that can be found outside the manual, and I memorized Riga, Tallinn, Tbilisi, and I think Baku from that. So I never had need for mnemonics for those.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by LucarioSnooperVixey »

Speaking of mnemonics, here are two of my favorites. Learned both of them from Eggheads.

Champagne Bottles: Michael Jackson Rich Man Sings Bad Notes/ Minim 2, Jeroboam 4, Rehoboam 6, Methuselah 8, Salmanazar 12, Balthazar 16, Nebuchadnezzar 20

Periods in the Paleozoic Era: Camels Often Sit Down Carefully in Place/ Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian

Some facts can be very easy to memorize if you can use the alliteration method.

For example, Don Pasquale == Donizetti or Maldives == Male.

You can also use the rhyming method for some.

For example, the currency of Tonga is the Pa'anga.

A joke I told my sister when she was learning the Capitals, "I just got out of the shower, Kenya put on Nairobi(My robe e)"?

I mean, it shouldn't be too hard memorizing Oceanic capitals. Nauru and Yaren have the same number of letters. Tuvalu and Funafuti both have multiple U's in them. Marshall Islands and Majuro you can use the alliteration method. And Vanuatu and Port-Vila you can kind of use the alliteration method.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by chmmr »

morbeedo wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 11:11 am I guess one of those flash card apps would be better for drilling info, because the order is random, and the app will repeat the ones you've missed until you master them.

Has anyone else experienced this or thought about better ways to drill facts?
This guy Matt Jackson uses these and I hear he's pretty good.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by alietr »

While we're at it, I'll mention Memory Palaces. I've never mastered it, but it's supposedly the method used by people with prodigious recall abilities. Look it up.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by morbeedo »

alietr wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:57 am While we're at it, I'll mention Memory Palaces. I've never mastered it, but it's supposed posedly the method used by people with prodigious recall abilities. Look it up.
I have that book, Moonwalking with Einstein. I’ll read it and report back!

The other side of the coin is speed of recall. On Monday’s game, I recognized
Spoiler
Waverley novels
in Ken’s SJ DD, but is was a looong walk to
Spoiler
Ivanhoe and then to Walter Scott.
Last edited by morbeedo on Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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morbeedo
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by morbeedo »

chmmr wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 6:03 am
morbeedo wrote: Tue Feb 26, 2019 11:11 am I guess one of those flash card apps would be better for drilling info, because the order is random, and the app will repeat the ones you've missed until you master them.

Has anyone else experienced this or thought about better ways to drill facts?
This guy Matt Jackson uses these and I hear he's pretty good.
364,878 flash cards! What a show off! I’m guessing he pulled sets from the internet or had a sizable stack to start off with. Looking forward to watching him slay again tonight
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by davey »

morbeedo wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 8:52 am
alietr wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 7:57 am While we're at it, I'll mention Memory Palaces. I've never mastered it, but it's supposed posedly the method used by people with prodigious recall abilities. Look it up.
I have that book, Moonwalking with Einstein. I’ll read it and report back!

The other side of the coin is speed of recall. On Monday’s game, I recognized
Spoiler
Waverley novels
in Ken’s SJ DD, but is was a looong walk to
Spoiler
Ivanhoe and then to Walter Scott.
I think I got that entirely from crossword puzzle clues, even though I haven't encountered it in decades. I've certainly never read any of them.
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by OrangeSAM »

How am I supposed to remember all this?
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Re: Techniques for Memorizing and Reinforcing Trivial Facts

Post by MinnesotaMyron »

OrangeSAM wrote: Wed Feb 27, 2019 3:03 pm How am I supposed to remember all this?
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