<story><title>Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?</title><text>Slow thinking HN members, what are some strategies you&amp;#x27;ve use to overcome and compensate for the lack of quick thinking.&lt;p&gt;E.g. I found I&amp;#x27;m great at analysis or putting together elaborate argument but if I&amp;#x27;m in a situation where I need to make a quick decision or get in actual argument I lose all of that capacity and usually drop to the level of IQ 85 if I&amp;#x2F;m to be judged by the outcomes. Nevertheless a slow thinker does have that potential there he&amp;#x27;s jut not able to tap into it if he falls into my category. In martial arts, rehearsing overcomes a lot of that - what has worked in real life for you?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I have no background in pedagogy, but I&amp;#x27;ve never understood the point of timed, high pressure tests, especially for children. You really just want to know the child has mastered the material such that they can solve the problems correctly--why is it necessary for them to do them in under 30 seconds, or whatever the bar is? If one kid gets the test done in 20 minutes and the other one takes 2 hours, but they both get the questions right, why does it matter?</text></item><item><author>rfrey</author><text>Sorry OP, for a bit of a diversion. I notice a lot of folks saying that &amp;quot;quick wit&amp;quot; or fast thinking or whatever, is just advance preparation (perhaps subconscious) or a memorized script, etc. It may be, but for those who think it always is, it definitely isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;My son is&amp;#x2F;was quite bright - reading at 3, reading the Economist and understanding 20% of it at 5, teaching himself calculus at 7. He got &lt;i&gt;terrible&lt;/i&gt; grades in school maths, and his teachers thought he was lazy because he so obviously understood the material.&lt;p&gt;With some cognitive testing at age 6, he was placed &amp;quot;somewhere over 2nd stdev&amp;quot; (they just stop after a bit) for most cognitive subjects... but when taking response time tests he would drop to 2nd percentile. Second percentile! You could ask him to to find the root of a simple quadratic, and he would think about it and get the answer, then ask him to name the first five even numbers, and he would take about the same amount of time. His processing speed was (and is) just slow. In school, many marks went towards &amp;quot;flash tests&amp;quot; and speed competitions in math. He couldn&amp;#x27;t get through the first half of the tests, he&amp;#x27;d run out of time. He&amp;#x27;s in third year honours maths at uni now, favourite topic is abstract algebra. They give him more time on tests.&lt;p&gt;My point is that this is real for some people, it&amp;#x27;s not just practice or technique or rehearsing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>sudosysgen</author><text>There actually is a reason. It is to make sure that kids have mastery of fundamental skills that they will need in the future. If it takes you a long to subtract, for example, it will take you an impractically long to do long division, and eventually you will take so long with more complex concepts that you won&amp;#x27;t be able to learn effectively.&lt;p&gt;Additionally, you also want a fair number of problems in any given test to reduce the variance in the grades, and you want the student to be able to finish a significant number exercises that can truly cover the breadth of the content to learn, hopefully with more than one approach as well. If a student takes 2h to solve a problem there is no way they will be able to complete enough of a problem set.&lt;p&gt;Of course, there are outliers. But personally, especially given my shorter attention span, the ability to do math correctly and quickly was absolutely crucial, and I wouldn&amp;#x27;t have been able to pass otherwise.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: Slow thinkers, how do you compensate for your lack of quick-wittedness?</title><text>Slow thinking HN members, what are some strategies you&amp;#x27;ve use to overcome and compensate for the lack of quick thinking.&lt;p&gt;E.g. I found I&amp;#x27;m great at analysis or putting together elaborate argument but if I&amp;#x27;m in a situation where I need to make a quick decision or get in actual argument I lose all of that capacity and usually drop to the level of IQ 85 if I&amp;#x2F;m to be judged by the outcomes. Nevertheless a slow thinker does have that potential there he&amp;#x27;s jut not able to tap into it if he falls into my category. In martial arts, rehearsing overcomes a lot of that - what has worked in real life for you?</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>ryandrake</author><text>I have no background in pedagogy, but I&amp;#x27;ve never understood the point of timed, high pressure tests, especially for children. You really just want to know the child has mastered the material such that they can solve the problems correctly--why is it necessary for them to do them in under 30 seconds, or whatever the bar is? If one kid gets the test done in 20 minutes and the other one takes 2 hours, but they both get the questions right, why does it matter?</text></item><item><author>rfrey</author><text>Sorry OP, for a bit of a diversion. I notice a lot of folks saying that &amp;quot;quick wit&amp;quot; or fast thinking or whatever, is just advance preparation (perhaps subconscious) or a memorized script, etc. It may be, but for those who think it always is, it definitely isn&amp;#x27;t.&lt;p&gt;My son is&amp;#x2F;was quite bright - reading at 3, reading the Economist and understanding 20% of it at 5, teaching himself calculus at 7. He got &lt;i&gt;terrible&lt;/i&gt; grades in school maths, and his teachers thought he was lazy because he so obviously understood the material.&lt;p&gt;With some cognitive testing at age 6, he was placed &amp;quot;somewhere over 2nd stdev&amp;quot; (they just stop after a bit) for most cognitive subjects... but when taking response time tests he would drop to 2nd percentile. Second percentile! You could ask him to to find the root of a simple quadratic, and he would think about it and get the answer, then ask him to name the first five even numbers, and he would take about the same amount of time. His processing speed was (and is) just slow. In school, many marks went towards &amp;quot;flash tests&amp;quot; and speed competitions in math. He couldn&amp;#x27;t get through the first half of the tests, he&amp;#x27;d run out of time. He&amp;#x27;s in third year honours maths at uni now, favourite topic is abstract algebra. They give him more time on tests.&lt;p&gt;My point is that this is real for some people, it&amp;#x27;s not just practice or technique or rehearsing.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Arech</author><text>even more than that - it&amp;#x27;s quite possible the one who did it too fast have just recalled most of it from his memory, but the other is likely to have found solution for himself from scratch, which is usually much more valuable. Even the perseverance to find the solution is something worthy by itself...
(obviously, &amp;quot;mileage may vary&amp;quot;, but still)</text></comment>