Memory Tests – Practice and Guage Your Memory
Memory tests are an excellent way to see how good your memory is and to help you improve it as well. Memory tests come in several forms. You can do all of these at home and challenge your memory to make it more effective. Exercise your brain for thirty minutes every day and you will see improvement over time.
Take an old photograph or postcard and study the image for 30 seconds. Flip over the image and begin writing down as many details as you can recall. When you study the image, you will be able to improve your level of recall by making associations between objects.
Picture This
For instance, if you are looking at a photo of an old man on a park bench, associate his derby hat with a racecar crash. Picture his can pulling him off a vaudeville stage. Make as many funny or dramatic visualizations as you can to improve your recall. Do this exercise with a different photograph each time.
Memory
Remember the child’s game “Memory”? You can turn this game into a memory test that will exercise your brain. The object is to try to remember the image on each tile in its position and the location of its match. To begin, place all of the tiles face up in random order. Study the location of each tile for 30 seconds.
Make as many associations as you can to remember the location of the tiles. It is easiest to use the journey system to do this. For instance, picture yourself on a journey around the neighborhood. The first stop is the tile in position 1, which you find at the playground. The image on the tile is the sun, which is shining so brightly today that it set the swings on fire! The second stop is four blocks down and three blocks to the right, where there is a glass skyscraper reflecting the sun so brightly that it blinds you.
Make a new association with each tile in each position and the location of each tile’s pair. Flip the tiles over and then see how many you can match on the first flip. Over time, you will be amazed to discover you can actually remember them all!
Verbal Tests
Because the memory is divided into both audio and visual centers, it is also helpful to test your ability to remember lists and other data when presented verbally. You can learn to hone your attention skills in listening carefully to a list of items and trying to repeat them back or write them down. You will need a friend’s help with this one, but it will be fun and well worth your time.
Online Games
You can also go online and do a search for “memory tests” for fun ways to test and improve your memory. Sites offer many interesting brain games for free. You can find short-term memory games, “Simon Says” games, and take face memory tests that will challenge and entertain you. Audio tests are available to check your verbal memory as well as visual tests to see how well you can remember visual details on a photograph, items in a list, or a string of numbers.
