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Pairs to remember

Study word pairs one at a time; then given one word, pick its partner. More pairs, shorter looks and closer lures as you climb.

  • Memory
  • Timed
  • 69 levels

How it plays

Pairs appear one at a time — lamp — river, coin — owl — each for a moment. Then one word of a pair is shown and you choose, or type, the word it was paired with.

The two words of a pair are always of different kinds, so the cue gives no hint. Picturing the two things together — a lamp floating down a river — is what makes a pair stick.

Levels add a pair or shorten the look; from a point on the wrong options include unseen words of the same kind as the answer, beside the partners of other pairs, which are the mistake people make most.

Keys

Space starts and skips ahead · 1–9 pick · Enter submits · Esc stops. On a phone, tap.

What it trains

This practises learning pairs quickly and keeping them apart. It improves this kind of paired recall, not memory in general.

Learn

How to get better at pairs to remember: the method, the techniques, what each new level asks of you, and the traps the wrong answers are made of.

Your approach to each question

  1. For each pair, make one picture in which the two things do something to each other: lamp — river is a lamp floating down a river. Two things merely side by side slip apart; two things interacting hold together.
  2. Make the picture odd, moving and specific — this guitar, not “an instrument” — and keep it to one action you can see in the time the pair is shown.
  3. When the cue appears, look at it and wait for its picture to come back before you read the options or start typing.
  4. Answer with the thing in the picture. If two options both feel familiar, ask which one was in this picture, not which one was in the list.

Techniques and tricks

  • Make the two things interact

    Join each pair with a verb: one thing hits, carries, eats or turns into the other. The action is what links them.

    e.g. coin — owl: an owl with a coin in its beak. kiwi — umbrella: a kiwi sheltering under a tiny umbrella.

  • Picture the exact thing

    Give the picture details that belong to that word only: the strings and round hole of a guitar, the black and white of a panda. A vague “some instrument” will not tell guitar from sitar.

  • A place for every pair

    Pin each picture to a stop on a walk you know well — the front door, the hall, the kitchen table — in the order the pairs come. The places keep neighbouring pairs apart, and that is where the worst lure comes from.

  • Picture both ways

    With “Either half”, the cue may be the second word. Make both things equally big in the picture, so either one brings back the other.

  • Number shapes for digits

    For “Symbol and digit”, give each digit a picture of its shape — 1 a candle, 2 a swan, 3 handcuffs, 8 a snowman — and make it act on the symbol.

    e.g. ★ — 2: a swan with a star on its head.

As the levels climb

  • Three things rise in turn: one more pair, less time to study each, and — once, three levels up from the first — close lures. After that the levels alternate between more pairs and less time, until the time reaches its floor.
  • The time per pair falls from 2.6 s to 0.95 s, with a quarter of a second between pairs. Below about 1.5 s a full scene is hard to build; use one quick action — the owl bites the coin — and move on.
  • Before the close lures, the wrong options are a partner from a neighbouring pair and words never shown at all. After, they include unseen words of the answer’s own kind: if the answer is guitar, expect sitar and tuba.
  • Word pairs keep coming, one every other level, up to 64. Past eight or so, the walk of places is what keeps them in order and apart.

Traps to avoid

  • The neighbour’s partner: the word paired with the pair studied just before or after is always among the wrong options. It feels right because it really was there. Ask whether it was in this picture.
  • The same-kind lure: you remember “an instrument” but not which one. From the close lures on, that is not enough; the picture has to be of the exact thing.
  • Answering the wrong way round with “Either half”: if the cue was the second word of its pair, the answer is the first. Find the picture, then name the other thing in it.
  • Two pictures run together: a lamp in a river and a coin in the river beside it. If two pairs share a setting, both partners will tempt. Give each pair its own scene.

How to practise

  • Switch “Answer by” to “Typing it” once choosing feels easy. Typing makes you recall the partner rather than recognise it, with no options to lean on. A symbol is always chosen.
  • Set “Cued by” to “Either half” to train each link in both directions.
  • Raise “Options shown” towards 8 once 4 is easy: more options means more partners of other pairs to turn down.
  • Use “Pairs of” set to “Symbol and digit” (up to 9 pairs) to practise the number shapes until each digit brings its picture at once.

Levels

Each question has a clock that comes from the work it asks for. There are 69 levels with the default settings, and the counter stops at the real top. Your level is judged on your last ten answers, every ten: 90% moves you up, below 80% moves you down, which holds most people near four in five right.

All of it is in the settings beside Start — how many answers a judgement looks at and how often it recalibrates, the thresholds, the time, which questions, how many options, and whether you see each verdict at once or review them together at the judgement. You can also jump to any level.

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