Am I just stupid, or are the median times skewed?

[BertieM]

Do people replay or pause the puzzles and are therefore able to get those fast times?
I just feel really stupid when I see how far off the median I am most of the time!

[pat44]

BertieM, I can commiserate with you. I am not good at doing these, and I can now reach the median time. So it's not out of reach!

This doesn't explain, however, the super fast solvers. I do NOT know how they go so fast! Personally, I've given up on FAST, and just try to solve as best I can. Asking for hints and getting errors is part of the learning process.

[Alethea]

Any fast or very fast times I have been able to achieve are due to what I think of as being in the zone. Sometimes the clues just line up without me trying - they just flow and make sense. I wish that always happened, but if I tense up, I slow down, and I do tense up pretty often.

[grimmgiraffe]

A few months ago, there was a post asking about fast times. Turns out, the fastest players don't "waste" time filling out the whole grid. They only fill out the top section that's required to finish. This means that they are holding a lot of info in their heads instead of putting it into the grid. I found the idea so interesting that I tried it. Now, I try to only fill out the top. I fill out the rest as I need to to solve. I'm playing on 5x7 medium. I get average most of the time, just into the fast zone sometimes. And sometimes I tank and only get 39 points because it all fell apart. LOL

If you look at the record holders, they have usually been playing on this site for years. I've been doing logic puzzles since I was a kid, but only under a clock for about the last year when I found this site. I've gotten faster, even before trying the top section technique. Just have fun and don't worry about the Gazelles. They aren't really doing any other tricks - they're just crazy fast.

[BertieM]

Thanks for the reassurance everyone… just practice, practice, practice then

[pat44]

Have you taken a look at tviolet's video? It was posted a little while ago. The title of the post was: Fast solvers - any video?! I tried to link to it, but I think the forum didn't like me adding a link because my comment was never posted.

[grimmgiraffe]

https://forum.puzzlebaron.com/forum/puzzle-baron/logic-puzzles/36778-fast-solvers-any-video

I think that's where folks talk about only filling in the top of the grid.

[BrilliantRuby]

In my experience, it really is practice! And when I pause the puzzle, I get the entire time counted (whether I'm on the puzzle page or not), so saving the puzzle really is just in case something crashes or you get interrupted.

[ego]

Hi. I am quite fast myself (around 800 points every time). The idea is that you quickly scan through the clues and begin with the most straight forward ones (usually two or more clues can be easily combined). In more complicated puzzles, there exists straightforward information in the clues that is not explicitly mentioned. To get faster, all it takes is some practice not caring about speed but rather about finding the "shorter" way to make use of the clues. There can be huge clues-sentences where you only need one little piece of the information they provide, but this becomes clear only if you use them in the final steps of the solution.

Let me give you an example: from clues: "13. Of the show where the survivor brought the knife and the episode that aired on April 27th, one featured Victor and the other was filmed in Nicaragua." and "17. The show where the survivor brought the duct tape is either the episode filmed in Nicaragua or Victor's episode." you can immediately deduce that duct tape was aired on April 27th!