The Story Method

The Story Method is one of the techniques for memorizing many things. Use a story as the link to remember a set of words or sequence of activities. When we were small, we heard a lot of bedtime stories, like Snow White, Three Little Pigs, etc. Up till now, we can still remember the details of the story. Hence, we find it is a good way to memorize things. “Make the story vivid and easy to remember, with silly things happening and with strong sensory content.” The story can be silly and unreasonable. Just like sometimes we can remember almost all of the “broken gags” we have heard but cannot remember the theories we have learnt from the academic subjects.
(Ref: http://changingminds.org/techniques/memory/story.htm, retrieved on 2/3/2009)

The following is the suggestion:
有一個人的肚子很餓，於是他去買甘蔗吃，忽然聞到一陣香水味，他就說︰「好香啊﹗」因為甘蔗是冰的，他吃了覺得很冷，所以穿上外套，吃完了甘蔗，覺得餐後潔牙很重要，所以趕快用牙刷刷牙，刷完牙後，踩到一顆雞蛋，蛋黃流出來，害他滑了一跤，撞到了一棵樹，他抬頭一看，樹上都是神奇寶貝的貼紙，他想起等一下將上演神奇寶貝，於是急急忙忙回家看電視，趕路趕得太累了，覺得很口渴，拿起杯子想裝水喝，一不小心把杯子摔到地上弄破了，只好趕緊拿掃把把碎片掃起來。

Is the story silly? Yes, it is. But it can help us to remember things more. In addition, if the story is full of exaggeration (誇張), it also helps us to memorize the items better!

Now try to remember the following things (in correct sequence) within 3 minutes:
毛巾 -> 火車 -> 士兵 -> 枕頭 -> 樹葉 ->
花貓 -> 太陽帽 -> 保齡球 -> 河流 -> 旋轉木馬 ->
電腦 -> 蘋果 -> 火柴 -> 森林 -> 草蜢 ->
公主 -> 鉛筆 -> 草裙 -> 雨傘 -> 小鳥

Remark: Don't use a pen/pencil to jot down the words or even draw the pictures.

By using the Story Method, you can memorize more items this time. Hope you enjoy this! Now, it’s time for you to create your own story!