Being strategic

The strategies for approaching word scrambles are pretty

straightforward:

 ✓ If you’re working on a series of jumbled words, look at each

one in turn to see if any words jump out at you. You’ll be

amazed by how quickly you can solve some scrambles; the

mind seems built for this type of task.

 ✓ When an answer doesn’t jump out at you, try writing the let-

ters in a different order. Don’t worry about creating a word

right away – just putting the letters in a new order may trigger

that ‘Aha!’ moment you’re looking for.

 ✓ If the ‘Aha!’ remains elusive, try grouping together letters in

what seems to be a logical way. Consider how many vowels

you have; if you have twice as many consonants as vowels,

chances are the word begins with a consonant. Try putting

together common groupings such as ing, sh or th.

 Keep rearranging letters for as long as it takes to find what

you’re looking for. You can even put the letters randomly in

a circle to help you view the letters differently. Eventually,

you’ll stumble upon a combination that makes sense.

 ✓ If you’re playing the type of scramble where you make as

many words as you can out of a group of letters, be sure to

look for words that you can pull directly from within the

words you’ve already created. For example, if you’ve written

down player, be sure to also write down play, lay, and layer.

You can also write down pay, per, year, reap, and so on, but

the point is to notice the words that you’ve already spelled

out, in order, within the longer words you’ve created – they’re

your easiest finds.

Posts les plus consultés de ce blog

 Feeling good from exercise Exercise is also great for your mental health. It doesn’t just leave you feeling good, but it can also improve feelings of depression and anxiety (see Chapter 9 for more on how to improve your mental health). Plasticity or neuroplasticity is the way the brain can change throughout your life by forming new connections between brain cells, which are called neurons. Most of the change occurs during infancy and childhood when the brain is learning and growing the most. But the brain can also change after an injury that’s dam- aged some part of its functioning. More recently, science has also discovered that the brain is ‘plastic’, even in adulthood. Whenever you’re learning something new, your brain changes to adapt to this new information (see Chapter 7 for how this happens with taxi drivers). Exercise also plays a role in brain cell (neuron) growth in the hippocampus of adults. Schizophrenia is associated with smaller brain volume, particu- lar...
Lire la suite
 Where you are matters A diving instructor was puzzled because his divers kept forgetting objects that they’d found underwater, even when he asked the divers about the objects shortly after they were back on dry land. To find out why this was the case, some psycholo- gists conducted an experiment with divers. The psychologists gave one group of underwater divers a list of words to learn underwater and gave another group a list to learn on land. They then tested the divers’ memories of the word list both on land and underwater. The group that learned the list underwater remembered the list much better in the water but struggled to remember it on land. In contrast, the group who learned the list on land had better memories on land but forgot the list when they were underwater. This story is a great example of how remembering where you were when you learned the information can boost your memory.
Lire la suite
 A lesson from the past: Lobotomising the prefrontal cortex Your knowledge of a lobotomy may be based on Jack Nicolson’s excellent portrayal of a rebellious patient at a mental hospital in the film One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. According to the other patients in the hospital, a lobotomy effectively reduced someone to the same mental state as a shop window mannequin – expressionless and unemotional. The lobotomy procedure consists of cutting the brain connections that go in and out of the prefrontal cortex (see ‘Keeping the brain alert and active’ for informa- tion on the prefrontal cortex). Doctors considered a lobotomy the final step for modifying extreme behaviour when other treatments, such as shock therapy or electrical shock treatment, failed to change a patient’s behaviour. Doctors thought that a lobotomy calmed the patient, reduced aggressive behaviour, and improved the patient’s quality of life. However, scientists now know that this procedure is no longer nec...
Lire la suite