How?!

[Vballdude17]

Maybe I'm just not as knowledgeable about vocabulary as I thought, but how in the world is the average amount of words on most quizzes between 55-65 words? I'm incredibly impressed with the members here and how well you do on these puzzles!

[bwt1213]

Hey, everyone playing this game either has a big vocabulary to start with or develops one. You can't play the game otherwise! SO -- play the game for about six months and watch what happens to YOUR vocabulary. You'll impress yourself. Your typing speed will improve, too. Just don't fall into the common trap of thinking that the really, really good players must somehow be cheating. There have been cheaters in the past, but they're obvious -- no one can type 300 wpm, for example. Some people really are incredibly good. Perhaps you could be, too. You never know until you try.

[crazykate]

Your reaction is similar to mine when I started playing here. I was pretty good at Boggle and thought I'd be above average here, but when I started out I averaged about 25 words per game and was confused that everyone else was so much better. Pretty soon I got "average" scores consistently, and a few years later I'm usually above average and am averaging about 75 words per 2-minute game, my personal best is 122 words in 120 seconds (using the swiping method on my phone).
Of course what bwt says is true, and your vocabulary will soon improve if you try playing for a few months, but you also have to consider that all of these online word games that look similar to Boggle have subtly different rules, and if you're good at one of these games it doesn't mean that you'll be amazing at another version. I've played three or four different boggle-style games now, and I've had to adapt my playing style each time to improve my scores, because of differences in the scoring system. Once you get used to WordTwist and start seeing common patterns, your pace and score will certainly improve. Whether or not you'll catch up to the WordTwist celebrities is a different question.

[Naboka]

In sports you hear coaches talk about players learning their skills to the point where they don't think about what they're doing. Thinking slows you down. The good, better, and best players don't think about individual words because they're so familiar with word combinations they can automatically enter multiples in chunks. There are levels of combinations that you acquire which will raise your scores. Beginning players search for individual words which consumes valuable seconds. The better players aren't really searching for individual words because that's too slow. If you watch video of Megaword scoring a thousand points you'll notice that he/she will earn 50 or so points in the last few seconds. You can't do that thinking and searching--only by knowing. And knowing takes study and practice. The reason beginning players are so often shocked by the high scores is because they're thinking and searching for individual words. No one scores 500 points or higher thinking and searching for individual words. No one. The mind just doesn't operate that way. You have to move to other levels of knowing.

[bwt1213]

Except for tern(e)(s) and rent(e)(r/s) and a VERY few similar combinations, I can say truthfully that I don't do blocks and don't even see them. I see words, pretty much one at a time. I have read the comments from people who say what letter combinations make a slew of words and then list them all. Perhaps I will eventually see those patterns myself someday and my scores will climb accordingly, but even when I score over 700 it's not because I saw a block and listed all the combinations, not for any of it. I agree that "blocking" is a good strategy and I really ought to use it. I watched what I did in the last dozen or so games, and for most of them it was one word at a time, and I typed them as fast as I could see them. Since I've played this game for more than six years now -- I think seven -- I think that perhaps this "block" method is just not natural for me. So, if you think that no one scores over 500 by thinking and searching for individual words, I am a counterexample. I do that all the time.

[DonGuy47]

A lot of the players here (or any online Boggle-ish site) have played literally hundreds of thousands of games. As for "vocabulary", I don't think that's exactly the right word, because it connotes knowing what the words *mean*. You just need to know which things this site counts as "words" and which don't.

[Naboka]

Except for tern(e)(s) and rent(e)(r/s) and a VERY few similar combinations, I can say truthfully that I don't do blocks and don't even see them. I see words, pretty much one at a time. I have read the comments from people who say what letter combinations make a slew of words and then list them all. Perhaps I will eventually see those patterns myself someday and my scores will climb accordingly, but even when I score over 700 it's not because I saw a block and listed all the combinations, not for any of it. I agree that "blocking" is a good strategy and I really ought to use it. I watched what I did in the last dozen or so games, and for most of them it was one word at a time, and I typed them as fast as I could see them. Since I've played this game for more than six years now -- I think seven -- I think that perhaps this "block" method is just not natural for me. So, if you think that no one scores over 500 by thinking and searching for individual words, I am a counterexample. I do that all the time.

Interesting. Apologies if I stepped over the line making a statement that conflicts with how you play. It's like the posters who claim certain things aren't possible. Uh?

I'm prone to sweeping generalities in formulating working theories. As new information comes in, the theories change.

Such as: We're all different. But, we're all the same.

My interest is learning how we process information to play the game. Not just this game, but all games. (Another sweeping generality, I suppose.)

Some of us are capable of tremendous mental feats, but those accomplishments fall back on basic principles. Usain Bolt runs faster than anyone else, but his muscles activate using the same process and chemicals as a person who can hardly run at all.

There's debate about how much information the working memory can hold. Some people can glance at a 5x5 boggle board and know the positions of all the letters. Other people can look at a 4x4 board for 2 minutes and still miss letters.

Not being adept at this game, I need to develop strategies. I've had very little experience and exposure to games like this. I have to fall back on studies about how we learn and apply that learning to improve. I still haven't succeeded, but I'm getting better.

Some people have embedded through years of exposure those strategies into their mental processing of "boggle" to the point they aren't even aware they're using strategies. It's second nature. They do it without knowing they're doing it. They've accumulated a warehouse of useful words and combinations that are easily and subconsciously accessed.

Because of the nature of this game, the working memory will always do individual words. If a person didn't separate out the individual words there would be nothing to record and store. It would just be a mishmash of letters--some of which might provide lots of points, like mzee, zex, zax.

From reading comments you've posted, I gather you can do some amazing things mentally. Like multiplying long strings of numbers. (I might be misremembering.)

A question that somewhat eludes researchers is where is the exact dividing line between conscious and subconscious thinking? How are some individuals more aware of their subconscious processes? What allows some a metacognition that eludes others?

Our skills depend on both conscious and subconscious processing. The question becomes, which part of your mind is being used to perform those long calculations and how is your mind doing it?

And how does your mind arrive at individual words?

Is it possible to see individual words without using patterns? Aren't all individual words patterns formed from similar patterns? Yet, why is "dorse" a word but not "zorse"? Or better still "xorze"? What a lot of points that one would produce.

Human ability can be breathtaking. Stephen Curry doesn't think about taking long 3 pointers, he just pulls up and shoots. His conscious mind may be focused on defenders, the shot clock, or his teammates. His ability to shoot without thinking comes from embedding those skills on a subconscious level. He's chunked so much information that it's all a simple motion. But, the mental and physical calculations for shooting a long range basket involve complex physics and math. Lots of students fail calculus trying to grasp and apply formulas for determining trajectory and force.

Josh Waitzkin was the subject of Searching for Bobby Fisher. He's also a world champion in martial arts. In his book about learning, he talks about recording his training. He or his partner would perform some incredible attack, yet not know exactly how or why they did it. Their level of performance was so fast that they didn't have time to consciously process that response. It takes 3 tenths of a second to blink, and they had to move considerably faster or get creamed. Blinking was slow motion.

They'd have to examine the film frame by frame to discover exactly what prompted them to react and how they did it. And then incorporate that skill into a new level of performance.

As good as he was, he searched for higher levels of performance. He studied how he learned and how he could apply that learning.

The simple explanation would be that he reacted to his opponents movement and performed a throw. After all, every bit of martial arts seems to be performing a throw or punch or kick or defending these.

Seems to be.

You could easily say that each of these is an individual act, done consciously using years of training.

But, simple explanations are sometimes inadequate in the quest for higher levels of performance.

There was more involved than simple explanation. There were levels of performance that Waitzkin could tap that he wasn't consciously applying. Just like Stephen Curry.

Brain and memory research is still in flux. We just don't know exactly how the human mind works.

I understand that you are doing individual words. It would be interesting to study what lies beneath your ability to do individual words so quickly. What occurs on a conscious and subconscious level. Megaword does individual words also. So do I. So does every player from beginner to master. Without individual words, boggle would have absolutely no basis.

But what levels of strategy lie beneath those individual words that separate beginners from masters?

All chess masters perform individual moves. But, each move comes from strings of moves they see in advance--mostly from patterns they've memorized. The rules of chess don't really allow a player to make the next 15 moves in one move. An observer can only see the individual move in real time. Seeing more moves comes mentally.

The nature of wordtwist or boggle doesn't really allow us to simultaneously type five words--it'll always be a process of one letter at a time until a word is formed, then onto the next one letter at a time until the next word forms. If your fingers get those letters out of sequence (faster than a blink) you've either lost the word or accidentally formed another one. My clumsy fingers sometimes find better words than my brain does.

If asked where the "i" key is located I'd have to stop, move my fingers and think about it--but I don't have to do that while typing. I just know. Yet, when typing words containing "i" I can only type one letter at a time.

Our minds see the patterns and see the words coming next. It can occur lightening quick.

lalatan memorized a lot of long words, built up a storehouse of accessible information. If that storehouse weren't organized, recovering those memorized words would be nearly impossible amongst the tremendous amounts of information a human brain stores. Some organization is necessary. Some system of organization. Yet, amongst all that information, he (?) retrieves a single word at a time. The speed of retrieval is the thing. Far faster than we could vocalize. He also has bins of patterns: roots, suffixes, prefixes. He's got all these linguistic patterns to apply to the game. And those patterns can be combined and recombined in microseconds, far faster than we could say the single word--much less the dozens formed mentally recombining those patterns. Yet, each is a single word.

What mental patterns/processes allow some to react so quickly that they aren't consciously aware of the what and how? What allows Megaword to consistently let fly from half court and sink the basket?

We're all different. But, we're basically all the same.

[Brisul]

A lot of the players here (or any online Boggle-ish site) have played literally hundreds of thousands of games. As for "vocabulary", I don't think that's exactly the right word, because it connotes knowing what the words *mean*. You just need to know which things this site counts as "words" and which don't.

That's a very accurate statement. This is a game of figuring out patterns too.

[DonGuy47]

I tend to see a letter combination, like mp or at, then look for words that include that combination.

[Vballdude17]

Thank you for your responses!

[bwt1213]

That's a very accurate statement. This is a game of figuring out patterns too.

Back when I was teaching math, I made a point of telling all my students that math is a game of patterns, and that we evolved to be excellent at finding and matching patterns. People who were bad at that ate poisonous fruit, didn't recognize predator footprints, planted in snowstorms, and drank green water. If math is anything at all, it is patterns -- and rules for patterns, transformations of patterns, patterns of patterns. Yeah, it's just college students and so it went right over their heads, right? Except it didn't. Some of them GOT it, and I could see it transformed how they saw reality. It's what teachers live for. If anyone is interested in a simple pattern, I can tell you how to multiply large numbers mentally, so you can do what I have done. Spoiler warning: I've programmed a computer to do the same thing, and it will emit thousand-digit answers FAR faster than you and never forget a digit. Life lesson: people are better than algorithms. But people should not dismiss algorithms. Amusing note: I have actually calculated pi and e to more than 10,000 digits each. It is not a transcendental moment.

[DonGuy47]

...calculated pi and e to more than 10,000 digits each. It is not a transcendental moment.

For those of you who are not mathematicians, that was a pun...

[Giovanni6]

The better players aren't really searching for individual words because that's too slow. If you watch video of Megaword scoring a thousand points you'll notice that he/she will earn 50 or so points in the last few seconds. You can't do that thinking and searching--only by knowing. And knowing takes study and practice.

[Estive]

When I was younger, I used to play Scrabble where you had to know the meaning of the words you input, otherwise the tiles played would be considered invalid. Though that's the past now, and I don't know what more than half of the words I play mean >.< I don't really play by blocking, I see the words mostly as well.

[flops]

Estive...you know that knowing the meaning of the word that you input in Scrabble...is NOT a rule...right? Apart from that...it's always interesting to learn how others play. Do Not Get Me Started on Monopoly rules....(apparently we've been playing it "wrong" for years..at what price entertainment?)