Joke... sorta

[Joe]

What's the main difference between "is" and "isn't"?










About 2,000 seconds !

Your Time: 2230 seconds OUCH

[Laura]

Hi Joe:

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that joke. That one and the one about "does" and "doesn't."

[pcuser]

I've been there and it's an error that will become far rarer as you keep playing. I also find that it helps if you read the clues aloud. You tend to catch those tricky clues better.

Good luck,
pcuser

[DebDimples]

Hi Joe,

I think we've all been there and I definitely sympathize! If it makes you feel any better, your time is about the same as mine and I haven't had any major mix-ups (yet!)! All we can do is learn from our mistakes and keep on playing! You're doing really well in spite of it!

[Joe]

Originally Posted by pcuser

I've been there and it's an error that will become far rarer as you keep playing. I also find that it helps if you read the clues aloud. You tend to catch those tricky clues better.

Good luck,
pcuser

That's the thing, my biggest screwup's or high times don't come from tricky clues, just stupid misreading. Most of my screw-ups come from trying to rush, which is easy just click clear and redo and then it's usually correct. When I mis-read something, for some reason, I misread it again and again the same way. Like now, just had a 1200+ one from a 'before / after' mistake on the very last clue. It was my fifth time thru it coming up with the same thing over and over that I finally caught it. I wish I could attribute it to rushing, but my second time thru I always go slower to try to cut my losses.
One thing I have noticed, after I get one of those, I tend to screw up again and again and again following. This time, I'm taking a break instead of trying to recover my average score and time right away. You and Laura are on like a whole different level and your comments are definately appreciated. Heck, Deb is still better and I'm glad your not taking your time to 222 right away. I'll honestly be happy with a 20th in time as long as I keep my score around 360. I like the 5x5s more for some reason.

[Laura]

Joe:

I've also found that my longer times come from not reading the clues correctly. When I first started solving, I think my average solve time was around 400 seconds. I was happy just to solve the puzzle and didn't care how long it took. When it went below 300 I was thrilled. But I found that trying to speed up resulted in a lot of stupid mistakes. I still make them if I'm not careful.

My solve method is to take care of the "5 people are" clues first and gray them out. Then the positive clues, the negative clues, and the "less than / greater than" clues. I make sure to gray out all the clues I've gone through except for the "less than / greater than" clues so that I can keep revisiting them as squares on the grid get filled in.

I like pcuser's suggestion to read the clues out loud. Either that or slowing down just a bit on the positive/negative clues.

Hope this helps.

Laura