From Peking Man to Jerusalem: Practical Memory Techniques for Highly Efficient Learning

By Ido Shapira

    Discover the fascinating world of practical memory techniques that will teach you how to remember huge quantities of information in a very short time.

   The memory techniques presented in this book are exactly the same techniques that I taught my friends at Fudan University.  After learning these memory techniques, they too could study for an exam in just one night and still get high grades, remember hundreds of new words in Chinese in the exact order in which they appear in the textbooks, and easily use complex mathematical formulas.  After a short practice, my friends managed to attain the same achievements that seemed impossible to them at first. The first thing I made clear to them was that my memory was completely average, that I had no particular talent for remembering information, and that the ability to easily remember large quantities of information was a matter of attitude rather than luck. Technique rather than talent. And if it’s a matter of technique, then anyone can learn it and use it.

   You will learn how Bill Gates memorized the license plate numbers of all of his employees; how Matteo Ricci, an Italian missionary in China, was able to recite from memory long Chinese poems after reading it once shortly after he arrived to China; how to learn English (or any other language) quickly; how to remember complicated math formulas and much more.

   In the process of reading the book you will encounter remarkable characters, ranging from Peking Man who roamed the plains of east Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago to Jewish teenagers who compete in the annual bible competition in Jerusalem. From an Italian missionary in China to an American man who lives in Thailand and reads a book every day. From a Greek philosopher to an improvisation actress in Beijing named Chakamisha.

​    Beside acquiring exceptional memory abilities, the techniques presented in the book will also boost your creativity to new heights and open a door to a thinking approach most people never get to experience. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ido Shapira
• Release date: Dec 25, 2018

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

Join me on a fascinating and enjoyable journey in a world of memory methods that will teach you how to remember huge quantities of various types of information in a very short time.

The memory methods presented in this book are exactly the same methods that I taught my friends at Fudan University after I was asked how I could study just one night for an exam and still get high grades, remember hundreds of new words that we learned in Chinese in the exact order in which they appear in the textbooks and easily use complex mathematical formulas. After a short practice, they, too, managed to attain the same achievements that seemed impossible to them at first. The first thing I made clear to them was that my memory was completely average, that I had no particular talent for remembering information, and that the ability to easily remember large quantities of information was a matter of attitude rather than luck. Technique rather than talent. And if it’s a matter of technique, then anyone can learn it and use it.

In the process of reading the book you will encounter interesting characters, ranging from Peking Man who lived hundreds of thousands of years ago in East Asia to an American who lives in Thailand and reads a new book every day. From an improvisational theater actress in Beijing to a poet in ancient Greece. Each of these characters presents a different aspect of how our memory works and how to make the most effective use of it.

In addition to memory methods, you will learn why many people who study new languages soon give up and stop studying them, how stress before and during an exam affects the ability to do well on it and how to overcome this difficulty, and how to travel in a city you never visited and feel like you lived there your entire life.

The first chapters of the book present concepts that will be repeated throughout the book and therefore it is strongly recommended to read the book continuously and not skip chapters. The first chapter will test your ability to remember various types of information – names of people and places, numbers and spatial information. Chapters 2, 3 and 4 explains why we remember some information easily while other information is quickly forgotten. Chapter 5 will explain how Matteo Ricci remembered poems with hundreds of characters and other complex texts in Chinese after reading them only once (and how you can do it too). Chapter 6 will present practical techniques for learning English - how to learn quickly are remember forever new English words and grammatical rules (they can be applied to other languages as well). Chapter 7 will clarify why many people who study new languages give up shortly after starting. Chapters 8 and 9 will explain why creativity and time intervals are important for remembering new information. Chapters 10 and 11 will focus on numbers and mathematics. Chapter 12 will explain how to remember a deck of cards in less than a minute (and why it is easier to do it in Chinese). Chapter 13 will teach you how to navigate a city you’ve never been to but feel like you already know. In Chapter 14 you can practice the memory methods you will learn throughout the book. Chapter 15 will present a particularly clever and efficient way to overcome exam anxiety in the days before and during the test (thus significantly improving your grade). Chapter 16 will explain the importance of sports, nutrition and sleep to memory.

The book is intended for those aged 16 and above. The rote learning method used extensively in schools is very suitable for childhood because it takes advantage of the brain’s efficiency in building connections between the cells during this period, and the knowledge acquired at school in several hours of rote learning is absorbed into the brain and serves us for the rest of our lives. On the other hand, this efficiency decreases as we age, and in high school and university we need techniques that do not rely on rote learning to remember information, but use existing memories accumulated during our lifetime. Each period of our lives requires a different approach to storing information according to the brain’s capabilities and the richness of the information that it contains. Teaching children the memory methods in the book may do them more harm than good because instead of learning by rote they will rely on previous memories, but their previous memories are very few and their ability to memorize learn by rote is at its best.

CHAPTER 1

TEST YOUR MEMORY

Our ability to remember information varies depending on the type of information we are trying to remember. Sometimes we read a text once and remember many items of information from it, and sometimes we immediately forget what we read by the time we reach the end of the line. Before I explain how to remember any type of information with ease, test your memory using the following text. Read it once at your normal reading speed and try to answer the questions at the end.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome your host Dr. Cohen, a voice emanates from the speakers and on a wide stage with a huge video screen in the back there appears a tall, thin, bespectacled host. He is wearing a blue suit and a light blue tie and on his greying hair he has a white yarmulke with a blue Star of David. Welcome to the International Bible Quiz, he says with a big smile. Happy Independence Day to everyone! In the city of Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, this year we are celebrating the 54th International Bible Quiz for Youth! The audience responds with vigorous applause. As you know, the quiz examines the knowledge of the Bible of teenagers from around the world. On the stage to my right are 16 boys and girls from all over the world who have been memorizing for many months, successfully reached the final stage and are competing for the title of International Bible Quiz Winner! Although each of them comes from a different country, all of them like to read books, ask questions and learn. Let’s get to know them better. He takes a few steps toward two rows of long tables to his right, where teenagers aged 13-17 are sitting, wearing white shirts and with big smiles on their excited faces, and stands opposite the first contestant. Let’s hear a round of applause for Tom Lieberman from the United States! The audience again begins to applaud. Tom is 14 years old, he loves to play guitar and his favorite character in the Bible is King Solomon. He accumulated 54 points in the preliminary stage. The host quickly continues and introduces the second contestant. Ladies and gentlemen, the second contestant is Abraham Levy of Canada. Abraham is also 14 years old, loves to play chess and solve puzzles in mathematics. His favorite character in the Bible is Nehemiah. He accumulated 52 points in the preliminary stage. The host continues, presenting each of the 16 contestants. Each of them reacts in a different way when the host introduces them: Rebecca from Spain, for example, gently waves at the audience with one hand while hiding her braces with the other, Rachel from England rises to her feet as soon as he says her name and bows to the audience with excitement, and David from Israel stays where he is and merely smiles.

Then the host turns to the tables on his left and introduces the judges – Bible scholars, university lecturers, a number of people who won the quiz in their youth and other dignitaries sitting side by side, with small smiles on their faces, trying to hide their excitement. One of them stands out – a short older woman sitting in the middle of the front row between two men. We have the honor to host Mrs. Levy, a historian and archaeologist who studies the Bible. Her father even judged the first quiz. The host introduces her while the judges, contestants and audience applaud and the two men seated beside her shake her hand. Finally, he invites the Minister of Education to the stage to make a speech. A man of around 45 mounts the stage. He is also wearing a blue suit with a blue tie, and has a red yarmulke attached to his bald head with adhesive tape. In the thousands of years that the Jews were scattered all over the world, it was the Bible that kept us united, he begins his speech. In the years we were not in the Land of Israel, the Bible taught us about its landscapes and deeds of our forefathers there. The spirit of the Jewish People has been preserved between the pages of the Bible. He sips from the glass of water beside him and continues, In the Land of Israel we are building moral and intellectual towers and the Jewish youths from all over the world who are now sitting on this stage know this better than all of us. They came to the prestigious position of participating in the final of the World Bible Quiz because they have the spirit, the curiosity and the desire to learn and know as much as possible about the Bible – about the characters, political events and spiritual occurrences that took place in this place thousands of years ago. Indeed, for the 16 contestants seated on the stage for the final of the World Bible Quiz for Youth held every year in Jerusalem, this is the culmination of an intensive period of study in which they spent many hours a day for many months studying a tremendous amount of information from hundreds of chapters of the Bible. They beat thousands of other contestants in the earlier stages of the competition at events held at Jewish schools around the world during the year before the festive final.

The Minister of Education ended his speech and the host addresses the first contestant. Tom, you are sitting in the front row in the first chair, so the first question is for you. The host asks the question and Tom, without utilizing the 15 seconds allocated to each contestant,