3 ms·

I can get almost all the questions correct on the SAT test without any time pressure but when I do it when the clock is ticking, I find myself unable to reason

I can get almost all the questions correct on the SAT test without any time pressure but when I do it when the clock is ticking, I find myself unable to reason my way to the correct answer nowhere near as fast. As a result, I have to move on and skip 1/2 of the verbal and math questions because I don't have enough time. And I don't draw blank when under pressure so there must be something else going on. I have tried to pretend that I'm an LLM and trained myself on hundreds of SAT questions on YouTUbe where people solve them. I've found that my reasoning speed under time pressure is a direct function of the amount data I've trained myself on. Is there a quicker way to this or do people like me, with average IQ or Chat-GPT 3.5 if you will, have to train on thousands of math and verbal questions because we don't have the Chat-GPT4 like the gifted people where they ara able to be creative and don't need to rely only on past knowledge to solve novel problems?

aruss 3y ago
Yes, there are ways to speed up your time. When I took the SAT (2011), the main skill I developed was to quickly categorize the kind of question. Since there are only a few different kinds of questions, you could train yourself to do this formulaically/algorithmically. The type of question tells you how to eliminate a couple of the answer choices, and then you apply another question-type-specific algorithm to figure out the answer from the remaining options.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The Kaplan book (or similar) went over this. You learn to avoid “solving the problem the hard way” as much as possible. However, the new digital SAT will require new strategies because its computer assisted, more like the LSAT/GRE (?) is.
tekla 3y ago
> I've found that my reasoning speed under time pressure is a direct function of the amount data I've trained myself on. That is the most pretentious way I have ever heard of saying "I did better when I studied and practiced more" I'm actually in awe.

aruss 3y ago

Yes, there are ways to speed up your time. When I took the SAT (2011), the main skill I developed was to quickly categorize the kind of question. Since there are only a few different kinds of questions, you could train yourself to do this formulaically/algorithmically. The type of question tells you how to eliminate a couple of the answer choices, and then you apply another question-type-specific algorithm to figure out the answer from the remaining options.

bombcar 3y ago
The Kaplan book (or similar) went over this. You learn to avoid “solving the problem the hard way” as much as possible. However, the new digital SAT will require new strategies because its computer assisted, more like the LSAT/GRE (?) is.

tekla 3y ago

> I've found that my reasoning speed under time pressure is a direct function of the amount data I've trained myself on. That is the most pretentious way I have ever heard of saying "I did better when I studied and practiced more" I'm actually in awe.