# Brainetics?  A Quack?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brainetics-a-quack/531492>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [March 6, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brainetics-a-quack/531492 "2010-03-06T02:12:08Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brainetics-a-quack/531492/1 "2010-03-06T02:12:08Z")

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Up early lately, I’ve been letting the infomercials play in the background for white noise when this ad for “Brainetics” caught my attention. He claims there are all kinds of shortcuts to (a) make the mind work like a calculator, and (b) significantly improve memory. Any truth to these claims?

The inventor of the product gives a few examples of such shortcuts, but I wager either there only are few shortcuts OR far too many rules to memorize.

Has anyone tried this product?

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**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\
**Post date:** [March 6, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brainetics-a-quack/531492/2 "2010-03-06T15:56:23Z")

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You might want to read [this](http://www.nowpublic.com/health/brainetics-scam), and/or [this.](http://www.infomercialspy.com/2009/05/brainetics-infomercial-review.html) It seems to work for children that have already developed good math skills and are just having trouble memorizing, but the complaints seem to be that this program is too expensive for what you get, and it doesn’t teach _how_ to arrive at solutions.