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Foreword Dominic O’Brien has now become globally known for his extraordinary mental powers. I had the privilege of first meeting Dominic in the late 1980s when I was in the process of organising the inaugural World Memory Championships. He told me that, like many students, he had been criticised in school for inattentiveness, daydreaming and for not being as interested as he should have been in the topics in the standard curriculum. Dominic’s interests were more involved in the worlds of the imagination, music and developing his more general mental skills. As a result, he left school and began to study the art of memory. Within five short years he had developed a gigantic “Memory Muscle” and was ready to challenge all comers at the first World Memory Championships in 1991. Taking on such legends of the mind as Creighton Carvello, who had set the world record for memorisation of the numbers of pi at 20,013 digits, Dominic virtually cruised to victory, clinching the title of first World Memory Champion and in the process breaking and setting mental world records. Since then he has gone on to defend his title successfully and to establish a growing number of mental records, including the memorisation of a pack of cards in under forty-five seconds. Ranked No. 1 in the world in Buzan’s Book of Genius (published 1994), Dominic is universally recognised as one of the greatest mental athletes in the world. After having seen Dominic smash world records with apparent ease in 1993 and 1994, Grandmaster Raymond Keene O.B.E., an authority on mind sports and chess, and chess correspondent of The Times and the Spectator, said that he had never seen anything so dominantly brilliant in the field of mental athletics. What is more important for all students to realise is that Dominic achieved his extraordinary accomplishments by studying the field, by applying himself totally to the task he had set himself and by developing the natural skills which we all have. In this excellent book on how to pass exams which you are about to read, Dominic reveals the methods and secrets by which he has achieved such enviable success. I recommend this book with delight, in the belief that all students will benefit from its clear advice, and look forward to seeing you challenge Dominic at the next World Memory Championships! TONY BUZAN
[...]... opportunity to test your skills online and find out about local and regional mind sports clubs So memory has plenty going for it It is an art form, a sport, a method of mental exercise and a cortical tuning fork, and if practised regularly will deliver the key to learning how to learn and, ultimately how to pass exams HOW GOOD IS YOUR MEMORY? As a control test, spend no more than two minutes trying to memorise... see your ideas fitting together If you’re going to make mistakes, sort them out at the planning stage; don’t wait until you’ve nearly finished to see the daylight Planning an essay may seem difficult because: 1 You fear you don’t know enough about the subject to know how to begin 2 You’ve got so many ideas that you don’t know where to begin This is where the Mind Map comes into its own We always underestimate... effective method for getting off to sleep One way of easing this workload on your eye muscles is to use a guide Guiding the eye While keeping your head stationary, try to scan the room in front of you by slowly gliding your eyes from left to right without stopping at any point You will find the task virtually impossible because your eyes will automatically want to stop and focus on the various objects... up looking like cartoon drawings in a vacuum If your story has no set, unique background, how will you keep this list mentally separated from any further ones you come to memorise? Setting the background For images to stay firmly lodged in the brain, they need to make as realistic an impact on the memory as we can create The secret is to provide a familiar mental background in which to anchor these images... example, if I were to say to you, “You can’t be serious”, and you were to use only the left hemisphere of your brain, you might assume that from now on I expected you to be amusing However, by incorporating a bit of right-brain perception, you would realise that I was simply expressing my surprise The greatest thinkers in history – the Darwins and Einsteins – were the ones that took full advantage... of attention Choose a piece of paper that is large enough to allow all the themes to radiate from the centre • Use only one key word per line It’s tempting to write more than one word because that’s what we’re used to Don’t It’s good discipline to get straight to the point • Use symbolic images as often as possible It’s easy You don’t have to be Michelangelo Even very simple images not only create... is fully automated, and all you have to do is empty them onto the conveyor belt So open the floodgates and empty your thoughts onto the fully automated, self-organising Mind Map There’s no need to worry about filling it up It has no saturation point, just as our thought potential is limitless Infinite thought – and infinite space in which to map our thoughts WHEN TO USE A MIND MAP Mind maps are extremely... in information means that there is no time for stopping or backtracking Imagine driving your car through a beauty spot If you want to take in as much of the scenery around you as possible, one way is to take regular short glimpses, which means you’ve got to drive slowly for safety’s sake The other way is to stop every few miles and get out of the car to enjoy the view The trouble is that this is just... available for the presentation, you may need to confine your speech to just three, or possibly four, key features Think of your audience and put yourself in their shoes: it’s better to make sure that the message gets across by concentrating on a couple of themes rather than trying to cover too many topics with no time for adequate explanation You may have to draw two Maps The first one will provide... probably owing to one or more of these reasons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 The lecture was delivered in a listless monotone You had a total lack of interest in the subject The lecturer was a turn-off The lecturer was a turn-on You were suffering from a lack of sleep The subject matter was too complicated to absorb, or there was too much information Stress – either from the pressure of study or owing to social or