Mnemonics - What's in a name?

If you are currently battling with memorising flowcharts, lists or diagrams, especially if you're taking SNAB Biology AS, have you discovered the value of mnemonics?

A mnemonic is something you probably knew already, although you may not have known it by that name....

When you were little, how did you remember the order of the colours in the rainbow? Or the directions on a compass?

You might have remembered a silly rhyme to help you get the letters in the right order - for the compass, people never forget being taught 'Never Eat Shredded Wheat', or sometimes the more fun 'Naughty Elephants Squirt Water'. This is EXACTLY what a mnemonic is - making up a daft sentence to help you make sure you've got all the items in your list, in the right order!

My SNAB AS students were working as a group, and struggling to remember all the 7 risk factors for Cardiovascular Disease (CVD) and the 6 treatments they need to remember for their exam. We came up with a couple of mnemonics, and suddenly we had such silly sentences, none of them will ever forget them....

The 7 risk factors for cardiovascular disease are Diet, Obesity, Hypertension, Age, Gender, Genetics, Inactivity and Smoking. Put the first letter of each one into order -  Result? DO HAGGIS. Slightly mad? Maybe. But they'll remember it, and that's the main thing!

Thus inspired about mnemonics, we made one to help with the  treatments for CVD. These are ACE inhibitors, Beta blockers, Diuretics, Statins, Anticoagulants and Platelet Inhibitory Drugs. We used the first letters, ABDSAP to make a sentence - ours was 'Americans Bite Dinosaurs, Sometimes Also Penguins'. Again, utterly bonkers, but definitely memorable!

So next time you've got a list of things to memorise, get creative with mnemonics! Good luck! If you create anything truly mad and memorable, I'd love to hear them!

Becky