Friday, June 8, 2012

Keeping Your Mind Sharp

I've read in different articles that doing "brain gymnastics" like Sudoku and crossword puzzles keeps the brain sharp and staves off Alzheimer's. I don't care for Sukoku (it's math, people!) and I like crossword puzzles okay but I find that many clues deal with obscure things or pop culture which I don't follow. So I've found a new thing that may have the same effect (I don't have scientific data to back up my hypothesis, but it can't hurt, right?). And that's The Official SAT Question of the Day. Yes, some of the questions deal with Math (and yes, I don't get the majority of them right but hey, I don't get many crossword puzzle clues right either, but I do try them!) But some are Verbal and I do often get them right. I still have to really think about the question and I like to have a reason to back my answer (a "proof" if you will) which adds to the brain activity. (You don't need to do that to take the SAT. I just think it's good to reason out your answer in a practice setting.)

I had subscribed to the SAT Question of the Day because I have a child who needed to take the SAT. I had been forwarding and then deleting the question. However, one day I paused to read the question and attempted to answer it. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had answered it correctly! So that led me to try other questions and soon I began to see this exercise as a suitable brain stimulating activity substitute. So now when I see that question in my inbox, I take a few minutes to puzzle out the answer.

What do you think? Want to try it? Click the above link to take you to the page. You can either subscribe to an email-a-day, or just go to the SAT College Board website where you can select from different days. They even give you hints if you need one. Tell me what you think! I'm thinking I want to see if I can up my SAT score from over 25 years ago...