Mind Map Handbook: The ultimate thinking tool. Tony Buzan
you will:
discover and explore new worlds
feast your imagination on new concepts and ideas
learn more about your amazing brain and how to use it
learn the basic building blocks of word power, enabling you, at a stroke, to expand your current vocabulary by thousands of words
learn how to use your body to communicate effectively
rediscover the joy of playing around with words and their meanings
learn the basic secrets of reading faster and comprehending more
learn how to mesmerize and entrance others with the power and beauty of the Power of Verbal Intelligence has been designed to make sure that you have fun while you increase your Word Power.
Most importantly, the Power of Verbal Intelligence has been designed to make sure that you have fun while you increase your Word Power.
A Brief History of IQ Tests
As has already been mentioned, at the beginning of the 20th century, psychologists observed that there was a correlation between someone’s vocabulary size and strength and their success in life. This naturally gave rise to a desire to define a person’s mental strength, and so the first basic intelligence tests were devised.
These tests measured people’s powers of vocabulary, their ability to see relationships between words and between numbers, and logical abilities. Average scores were calculated for different age groups. If your score was average for your age, you scored 100; if your score was slightly below average, your score was determined to be between 90 and 100; and if slightly above average, between 100 and 110. Someone whose scores were measured between 120 and 130 was deemed to be of high intelligence, and a score of 140 or more conferred the status of genius.
These tests became properly known as Intelligence Quotient Tests, or IQ Tests. However, there were two problems with them. First, it was assumed that your IQ score could not and would not change. This, we now know, is completely untrue – you can significantly change and improve your standard IQ score.
The second problem lay in the assumption that what the tests were measuring was intelligence, and was all there was to intelligence.
Because of these beliefs, education systems around the world became predominantly verbal and mathematical, and being intelligent or smart meant, generally, ‘having a way with words’!
However, we are now beginning to realize that Verbal Intelligence is but one of 10 different intelligences – along with Creative, Social, Spatial, Numerical, Spiritual, Personal, Sensory, Sexual and Physical – and that each of the intelligences benefits by the development of the nine others. Thus, as you continue to develop your Verbal Intelligence, you will be simultaneously working on the other nine too!
It is time for your first Verbal Workout!
Verbal Workout
Word Puzzle Number 1
Welcome to your first Verbal Intelligence Word Puzzle. You will be given four scrambled words. Your first Verbal Intelligence task is to rearrange the letters so that they form a meaningful word. When you have discovered what the word is, place it in the space provided. When you have done this, you will notice that between one and four of the letters in each word are highlighted. These letters take you on to the next stage of the puzzle. Underneath the four words you have unscrambled you will find a clue and a number of blank spaces. The clue will guide you to a one-or two-word answer, found by arranging the ‘selected’ letters from the first phase of the game into a word or words that satisfy the clue.
This is the first of many such games. In each chapter you will find a similar game, played in the same way. Answers to all the games are in the Answer section at the end of this book.
| 1. giclo | X __ X __ __ |
| 2. nafgymi | __ __ X __ X __ __ |
| 3. tonij | X __ __ X __ |
| 4. goleyu | __ X __ __ X __ |
Clue: Having a ball – or more! __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __
Verbal Intelligence Tip
Whenever you have such Verbal Intelligence questions, always scan the entire question first.
Why?
First, because scanning gives your brain the ‘whole picture’, which means that it can grasp the whole territory and therefore feel in control. Second, if you have scanned all the puzzles/questions, they are ‘in’ your brain. This means that as your conscious brain works on one of the puzzles/questions, your para-conscious brain (that 99 per cent-plus powerhouse of your brain that works without you consciously having to control it), will be working on the remaining questions. This makes it much easier to find the correct answer when your conscious attention focuses on the next puzzle/question. In the psychological idiom, you are allowing your brain to incubate (sit on, as a bird, for the purpose of hatching) your ideas.
You will know in your daily life that often when you ‘can’t get’ a word, if you allow your brain to ‘sleep on it’ the word will often pop up into your consciousness. Here, you are simply using this natural process to help raise your Verbal Intelligence.
Word Puzzle Number 2
There is a three-letter word in brackets. When you add, successively, the seven-word beginnings to the three-letter word, each one makes a different meaningful word. What is the word in the brackets?
| L | |
| M | |
| P | |
| GL | (__ __ __) |
| GR | |
| BR | |
| B |
How Verbally Intelligent Are You?
Now that you are becoming familiar with your Verbal IQ, how Verbally Intelligent do you think you are, and more importantly, how Verbally Intelligent do you want to be?
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being tongue-tied and not at all Verbally Intelligent, and 10 being eloquent, witty and very Verbally Intelligent, how would you rank your Verbal Intelligence at the present time?
Now do the same exercise, but this time indicating on your 1 to 10 scale, how Verbally Intelligent you would like to be when you finish this book.
When you have completed these two tasks, start working on converting the real into the ideal.
Get Into Crosswords
Crosswords, Scrabble® and other word games such as word searches and code crackers, are all fantastic ways of stimulating and increasing your Verbal Intelligence. More and more magazines of crosswords and word puzzles are published each month, and they are a great way to try your hand at a variety of different word games.
Check Your Work-word Level
Each different profession has its own specialized vocabulary and expressions. Remember that your Verbal Intelligence has a direct correlation with your success at work. The most successful people in their chosen fields have a vocabulary that ranks in the top 10 per cent for that field. Begin to keep a list of words that is special to your own profession, and make sure that you aim for that top 10 per cent!
One way