Topic 7: The Peg System - Introduction
Having thoroughly learned the rules of the Phonetic Alphabet, you are now equipped to tackle the most versatile and powerful of all the Memory Master systems - the Peg System.
You have already learned how to memorise any list of items in sequence, using the Link system. But supposing you wanted to recall, say, what the seventh item of a list was - how would you do it? You'd probably have to go over the Link in your mind and count the items one by one, until you reached the seventh item.
The Peg System enables you to memorise any list of items - in and out of order. For example, think back to the Tutorial on Substitute Words, where you memorised a list of the twelve largest English counties, in sequence. If you were to memorise that list using the Peg System you would automatically know that, for instance, the fifth largest county is Norfolk, and that the ninth largest county is Hampshire.
The Peg System uses a series of Peg Words, based on the Phonetic Alphabet. Every number from 1 to 100 has its own Peg Word, which can be associated to anything you want to remember. The Peg Word then gives you a reference back to the number that it represents.
Tutorial 11 introduces the Peg Word concept, and teaches you Peg Words for the numbers 1 to
20, which you need to learn thoroughly before proceeding any further.
Tutorial 12 takes you through a detailed example of how to put the Peg Words to practical
use.
Tutorial 13 teaches you Peg Words for the numbers 21 to 100. This tutorial is
different from all the others, in that you do not have to work through it all. One of
the beauties of the Peg System is its flexibility - you only have to learn as many Peg Words as
you will actually need to use. This will depend on the type of memory chores to which
you decide to apply the Peg System.