Page 243 - Mind Games The Aging Brain and How to Keep it Healthy

Enjoy Your Ageless Mental Agility • 227

order. If you remember the sequence of numbers in the re-
peating section, then you can dazzle your friends and con-
found your enemies with math magic tricks and
lightning-speed division prowess!
Not all sequences involve numbers. Consider this se-
quence of letters:
S, M, T, W, T, F, S
They are the first letters of the days of the week. What do
you think the next letter is in the following sequence of let-
ters?
O, T, T, F, F, S, S, E, N, . . .
These are the first letters of the words for the counting
numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, . . .

Sequence of Letters
Here’s another: A, E, F, H, . . . What is the next letter in this
sequence? _____ The answer is at the end of this chapter.
This sequence is another favorite for building pattern-recog-
nition powers. In the blanks in the table, write the counting
numbers down the first column and then up the second col-
umn. Do this before you go on to the next paragraph.
Take some time to study the list of numbers that you
generated. What do you recognize about the list of num-
bers? Do this before you go on to the next paragraph.

_____
18
2 _____
_____ _____
_____ _____
_____ _____
_____ _____
_____ 2
_____ 1
_____ 0

Did you recognize this as the nine times table? The pattern
that is generated by the nine times table yields great fun. Try
this: Add the digits across each row in the table. For example,
for the row containing 18, add 1 + 8. Then 2 + 7, and so on.