Resetting Your Inner Clock

TexAgAaron

So I for one am a hyper person when it comes to tests in general. I don't know why, but that mysterious 6th gear always shows up regardless of how prepared I am for the test. I'm making my way through the CC for a second time and I have been trying to knock down one of my biggest problems: my inner clock.

Sometimes it feels like 1 and half minutes have passed on a single problem when in reality it has only been 30 seconds. This would cause me to proceed too quickly, causing me to misread and make bad mistakes (this especially hurts on easy layup questions). I found my remedy to be quite simple.

When I time myself during the problem sets, I have started to make written notes to myself, writing down my time and take notice of how my results relate to it. If I catch in the BR that I made a rush mistake by reading too fast, I make sure to notice the clock as I'm doing the next few questions. I have found that trying to show that time isn't going as quickly as I think has helped me immensely with concentrating and gathering all the necessary details, which has lead to my accuracy going up dramatically. You don't have to do this for every question. But doing one problem set for example, and taking a few glances at the clock while doing the problem can increase your awareness and help reset your inner clock.

I know I'm not the only one out there struggling with this.....and I still do currently. But I have much more control of my inner clock and realize a ton of my mistakes have come from this single issue. I hope this helps those out there struggling with this. Don't look at the clock as the enemy, but as your friend!

apublicdisplay

Same here. Its helped me to completely disregard the amount of time it takes and just go off of my natural pace, however long it takes me to answer a question. This doesn't mean I lounge around when I answer; I'm still focused and determined to answer the question, but the time it takes is a secondary consideration that will be resolved if I understand the material. If you're too focused on measuring seconds, I think test day with all of its unpredictability will show how you haven't been going after the right thing.

TexAgAaron

Definitely. I definitely don't consider time until I feel like I have a solid understanding of what I'm supposed to do. But once I do, I definitely have become aware of time. Its nice now that even on a question that I have to pause and re-read something quickly, I'm still under time or barely over.

Alex

@akeegs92 said:
Definitely. I definitely don't consider time until I feel like I have a solid understanding of what I'm supposed to do. But once I do, I definitely have become aware of time. Its nice now that even on a question that I have to pause and re-read something quickly, I'm still under time or barely over.

This is generally how I feel as well. To develop my internal clock I use this free online timer that lets you count up: http://www.online-stopwatch.com/large-stopwatch/

It's been very helpful for me vis-a-vis logic games as well as RC. For some reason LR kind of always just was on point with me.

TexAgAaron

I'll have to give that a try @"Alex Divine". Thanks!