could stick me with pins and I wouldn’t feel it. Okay, what problem am I on . . .
?”
You’re concentrating so hard on concentrating that you’re not concentrating
on what you need to be concentrating on: the test. The trick is to learn to
concentrate without thinking about concentrating. Your mind should be
effortlessly focused. To learn to do this, you must practice. Training your brain is
just like training any other part of your body—you have to exercise it.
Practice makes perfect. Concentration is no exception.
The earlier you hone your concentration abilities, the
better.Concentration exercises are usually pretty lame. They’re the kind of thing
you read, then say to yourself, That’s lame, and move on without even trying
them once. Typical concentration exercises are things like trying not to space out
while running through the multiplication tables in your head. Any mental task
that can be done for 20 consecutive minutes but is tedious enough that your brain
is tempted to space out makes for a good concentration exercise.
We have discovered that drinking games make much better concentration
exercises. If you practice these games for 20 minutes a day for a month, you will
find that your concentration span will improve dramatically. You will also be
admired when you go to parties in college because you will be so good at these
games.
Important Note: Usually, these games are played in groups, and whenever
someone screws up, that person has to take a drink. You, however, should play
them alone and without doing the drinking. You will kill the whole value of the
concentration game if you stop every few minutes to drink. You will also kill off
so many brain cells after a month of these games that you will have no brain left
with which to concentrate.
We’ve provided you with guidelines for two drinking games. We suggest that
you play Game 1 for ten minutes, then Game 2 for ten minutes. It is good
practice to try to do these games with the television on to see if you can
concentrate so intensely that you are not even aware of the TV.
Game 1: Kerplunk!
This one starts off simply but gets difficult. Say to yourself, in a steady rhythm,
the following sequence of sentences:
- One frog—two eyes—four legs—in a pond—Kerplunk!