Customer Reviews

Use Your Memory

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The above rating is given in the context of revising for exams, although no doubt the books application is much wider. In summary the techniques - namely mindmaps - held within revolutionised the way I thought about studying for exams. On the basis of a ratio of time spent absobing the books content compared to benefit derived this book is without doubt the best I have ever read. The importance of learning how to learn as opposed to learing any specific body of knowledge can not be stressed enough. The stories of miraculous transformations from middle of the road students to Oxbridge candidates are not merely sales ploys, I firmly believe they occur. In my case I achieved average grades at GCSE before reading this text on the advice of one of my A Level teachers. I could not believe the transformation in efficeincy in terms of my revision techniques. I subsequently achieved four A grades at A Level and secured a place at one of the country's best universities. I have recommended the book to numerous friends and invariably their responses have matched my own. This said I do know a few who didn't rate the book, although i've no idea why not. If you buy one book this year with the intention of passing a set of exams make sure this is it - obviously if it's available!

A very disappointing book. I found it difficult to apply the techniques described (pp 1-57), including the pretentious Self-Enhancing Memory Matrix, to anything more complex than memorisation of things like shopping lists, historic dates and phone numbers. The rest of the book (pp58-165) is pure padding and comprises annotated lists of top artists, composers, writers, plots of Shakespeare's plays, capital cities, suffixes and prefixes,parts of the body, etc which anyone could cull from an enclyclopaedia or reference book. Very little indication is given as to how the Grid Maxtrix should be applied to these lists. The section on the "100 most basic words" from each of seven languages is laughable and gets no further than suggesting a way of remembering that "grande" in Italian means "big". An entertaining read - but serious students can happily forget it!

Buzan's books have always been good. THe skills in this one is extremely powerful. Ten times more powerful if it is read with Master your memory, olso by Tony.I've read this book trice in the library but never got hold of it.