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Perhaps she didn't realize that she could study for the test and then pass it after one try. According to the article she has almost no formal education, so tha

Perhaps she didn't realize that she could study for the test and then pass it after one try. According to the article she has almost no formal education, so that seems possible: "It was not until she turned 15 that she joined a formal school as a fourth grader. But her schooling ended there a few years later."

yafujifide 16y ago
I spoke too soon. On the second page, the article says she did study, but did so "phonetically" and thus didn't understand what she was studying.
- petercooper 16y ago
  This reminds me of something: I saw a documentary about championship Scrabble players and a lot of them aren't English speakers or even Latin alphabet language speakers. They treat Scrabble as a visual pattern game rather than a verbal one.
  - zzeroparticle 16y ago
    Pretty much been my experience playing. It's more about memorizing lists of words without really bothering to know what they mean and figuring out which words to use when and how to place them to maximize your point total on each play.
    - DougBTX 16y ago
      Family scrabble rules: if you don't know a definition for a word (which can be found in the dictionary if challenged) you can't use the word.
    - petercooper 16y ago
      I mean no offense by this but.. is English your mother tongue? I used to play Scrabble a ton and adopted a more verbal, etymological style that, I'd assumed, would be more common amongst native English speakers (but maybe not!)
      - zzeroparticle 16y ago
        It is, but my primary strategy has been to commit a huge list of words to memory, especially the two-letter words to join new words together for point efficiency.
lars512 16y ago
Bingo. She didn't have the formal education, and was basically rote-memorizing everying: "What she was essentially doing while studying alone was memorizing as many questions — with their answers — as possible without always knowing what they were all about." It's surprising that she didn't end up remembering by heart all possible test answers by then. It's also sad because, if she had asked an instructor politely to explain one complex traffic word for her each day, she would have reached the understanding she needed to pass the test far sooner. Then again, it sounds like she treated it like a hobby. If she was having fun, who's to stop her?

yafujifide 16y ago

I spoke too soon. On the second page, the article says she did study, but did so "phonetically" and thus didn't understand what she was studying.

petercooper 16y ago
This reminds me of something: I saw a documentary about championship Scrabble players and a lot of them aren't English speakers or even Latin alphabet language speakers. They treat Scrabble as a visual pattern game rather than a verbal one.
- zzeroparticle 16y ago
  Pretty much been my experience playing. It's more about memorizing lists of words without really bothering to know what they mean and figuring out which words to use when and how to place them to maximize your point total on each play.
  - DougBTX 16y ago
    Family scrabble rules: if you don't know a definition for a word (which can be found in the dictionary if challenged) you can't use the word.
  - petercooper 16y ago
    I mean no offense by this but.. is English your mother tongue? I used to play Scrabble a ton and adopted a more verbal, etymological style that, I'd assumed, would be more common amongst native English speakers (but maybe not!)
    - zzeroparticle 16y ago
      It is, but my primary strategy has been to commit a huge list of words to memory, especially the two-letter words to join new words together for point efficiency.

lars512 16y ago

Bingo. She didn't have the formal education, and was basically rote-memorizing everying: "What she was essentially doing while studying alone was memorizing as many questions — with their answers — as possible without always knowing what they were all about." It's surprising that she didn't end up remembering by heart all possible test answers by then. It's also sad because, if she had asked an instructor politely to explain one complex traffic word for her each day, she would have reached the understanding she needed to pass the test far sooner. Then again, it sounds like she treated it like a hobby. If she was having fun, who's to stop her?