Train Your Brain

Have you already tried these brainteasers on Twitter?

If not, try them now before looking up the answers!

1. The words below are all anagrams of other words, the initial letters of which form an anagram of another word. What is the answer

bruise warned please listen veined trance

2. Starting with HATE, change one letter at a time until you have the word LOVE. Each change leaves the other letters in their original places and must result in a proper word. What is the minimum number of steps required to achieve this change?

HATE …. …. ….

LOVE

3. If today is Friday, what is the day that follows the day that comes after the day that precedes the day before yesterday?

4. If you were to spell out the numbers in full, (One, Two, Three, etc), how far would you have to go until you found the letter ‘A’?

5. Another Word Ladder

Change ONE to TWO in seven steps, changing only one letter in each three-letter word.

6. When Bob is twice as old as he is now, he’ll be four times as old as he was six years ago. How old is Bob?

7. Make the following correct with one stroke of the pen: 101010 = 9.50

8. How can you combine eight 8′s to make 1000?

9. Tune up your brain! Can you find a single five-letter word which can be added to each of the following letters to form 5 six-letter words? B, T, J, M, D

10. The maker doesn’t need it, the buyer doesn’t use it and the user uses it without knowing. What is it?

11. Show how one taken away from 19 can give you 20.

12. There are three light seitches downstairs which light up three bulbs in the attic. How can you find out which switch lights up which bulb with only one trip upstairs?

13. A Christmas brain teaser. If snow falls from the sky at the rate of one drop of snow per second, how many drops of snow will fall over one minute?

Come on, you can do it!

Answers: (Don’t look unless you have to!)

1. The answer is ‘ANSWER’: asleep, nectar, silent, wander, envied, rubies.

2. HATE, DATE, DOTE, DOVE, LOVE or HATE, LATE, LAVE, LOVE or HATE HAVE HOVE LOVE.

3. Thursday

4. 1000: one thousand. Unless you in the UK when 101 = one hundred And one.

5. OLE, ALE, AYE, DYE, DOE, TOE, TOO, TWO

6. Bob is twelve (12)

7. 10 T0 10

8. Here’s one way but you might find more? 8+8+8+88+888=1000

9. Bangle, Tangle, Jangle, Mangle, Dangle

10. A coffin!

11. Write 19 in Roman numerals – XIX. Take I away and you are left with XX.

12. Turn on one switch and wait a minute or two. Then turn it off and switch on another light. Go upstairs and you will see one light on, one is still warm to the touch and one is still cold. Now you know which is which!

13. 61 drops of snow. We start counting from the time the first snow drop falls and the moment of time is 0 seconds. At the moment of time of 1 second, we have two drops of snow, and so on. When the moment of time is 60 seconds, we will have had 61 drops of snow.

Memory is not one large database in the brain, which records all your experiences, observations, incoming information, and miscellaneous facts and figures. You are being bombarded with information every moment of the day – through eyes, ears, nose, taste and by touch. If you remembered it all, there would be overload and chaos.

Not everything needs to be remembered and the brain has efficient ways of making sure you remember what is important to you. Learning new information, storing it away, and then being able to retrieve it is a complex process.

So, how does the brain sort out what you will remember?

This happens through a clever chain of different memory processes.

Sensory memory

This is the earliest stage of memory when sensory information from the environment is stored very briefly, usually for no longer than half a second for visual information and about 4 seconds for information you hear. Images and sensations from around you includes everything you have seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelt. Masses of information! So you can’t remember it all. Only the sensory information important to you passes into the next stage, your short-term memory.

Short-term memory

This is the information you are currently aware of or thinking about which will be stored in the short-term memory for about 30 seconds. Many of your short-term memories are quickly forgotten, but concentrating or focusing on the information important to you allows it to continue to the next stage, long-term memory. You might help commit things to memory by rehearsal e.g. repeating a telephone number until you either dial it or write it down; by adding more clues – color, shape, additional details, for example. Once stored away in the long-term memory, info can stay intact for a very long time.

Working Memory

A special type of short-term memory, working memory, comes into action when you do things like mental arithmetic, deciding in the supermarket whether the small or large sized article is the best buy, or evaluating different strategies for closing a business deal.

Long-term memory

Without you being even aware of it, you have a huge, continuous storage of information. Most of it is largely unconscious, but can be called to mind when required. Some of the information is fairly easy to recall, while others are much more difficult to access. Remembering your own name, how to speak, where you went to school, where you were last year (or even five minutes ago), all depend on long-term memory.

Long-term memory is divided into two types: declarative and procedural. Declarative memory is subdivided into episodic memory, which refers to remembering particular events such as going to the doctor last week, and semantic memory which refers to our knowledge about the world – knowing the meanings of words, who is the Prime Minister etc (together known as declarative memory). Procedural memory is our ‘how to’ memory, remembering how to ride a bike, how to play the piano, how to drive a car, etc.

At every one of these stages, your memory efficiency can be improved. Memory is is supported by many aspects of your life – mental agility, nutrition, exercise, rest, paying attention, controlling stress, and understanding and using skills to enhance memory performance.

For more free help and personal advice on keeping your brain youthful and improving your memory, please visit the Brain and Memory Foundation.