Page 182 - Use Your Memory

13 Long Number
Memory System

The long number memory test on page 18 will probably have been
particularly difficult (most people, in IQ. tests, cannot remember
numbers more than 7 or 8 digits in length). Given a long number
such as 95862190377 to memorise, most people will try a variety
of responses including: to repeat the build-up continually as the
number is presented, eventually getting bogged down in the very
repetition itself; to subdivide the number into two- or three-
number groups, eventually losing both the order and content of
these; to work out mathematical relationships between the
numbers as they are presented, inevitably 'losing track'; or to
'picture' the number as it is presented, the picture becoming more
and more blurred as the long number is presented.
If you think back to your own performance in the initial long
number memory test, you will probably realise that your own
approach was either one or a combination of those approaches just
mentioned. Once again, the Major System comes to the rescue,
making the task of memorising long numbers not only easy but
enjoyable. Instead of using the Major System as a peg system for
remembering lists of 100 or 1000, etc., you take advantage of its
flexibility: going back to the basic code, and to the Basic Key
Image Words you constructed for the numbers from 1 to 100, you
use the Key Image Words in conjunction with the Link System to
remember long numbers.
For example, take the number at the beginning of this chapter,
95862190377. It is composed, in sequence, of the following
smaller numbers, each followed by its Major System Key Image
Word:
95—Ball
86—Fish
21—Net
90—Base
37—Mac
7—Key
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