skipping Q's; The elusive obvious on the first go.

confusedandenthused

Ok here’s an odd question and probably not of much practical use, but I’m hoping some of you might be able to relate to this and shed some insight.

You read the stimulus. It’s a tougher question. You read it slowly once. There’s a sentence whose meaning you couldn’t fully process. You re-read it, it’s become clearer- the argument’s become clear and you’re ready to answer the question. You’re down to a couple answer choices, D and E and the more time you spend looking at it, the less clearer the right answer gets. It feels like you’re all maxed out in terms of your reasoning capacity. It’s gotten counterproductive to keep staring at the question.

You do a few other problems, and then come back to it- and the right answer jumps out at you. Not D or E. But A or B or C- the answers you had dismissed the first time around. I’m inclined to wonder why the right answer can become so clear and obvious on the second go.

Why is it that a question can seem a lot easier when you come back to it? Does your mind/brain naturally come away with a fresher perspective after a break? Is your subconscious mind doing the work for you even when you’re not consciously thinking about that very question? Maybe this is a question for a psychologist; I don’t know but I can’t help but think about it. It’s gotten me curious.

I find this tendency to be counterintuitive since one might figure the first time around you’re at an advantage as opposed to the second time when you’re having to re-process the information in the stimulus.

Thoughts?

pritisharma

Can I just change your last sentence from "having to re-process" to "re-process" ... when you re-read it with that change does that make sense :-) . Anyways I think a large part of it is that you have met the devil and looked him in the eye.so you approach it the second time without fear/less fear.