I always found the early round of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire the toughest. They’d read out a list of seven Presidents and you had to put them in date order. Typically the winner would do it in 5 or so seconds and the other people perhaps in 10 or so seconds. It would take me 20 seconds at least. I know my Presidents and I certainly know Lincoln comes before Teddy Roosevelt. It just takes me longer to organize it in my head.
I had the same problem in college classes like Trig, Physics or Chemistry. I was always the last guy out of the room on test day. Even then I sometimes didn’t finish. I even tried working the homework exercises extra times. Trying to make a speed drill out of it. It helped a little in Chemistry but I was still the last guy out of the door. I usually made A’s if I managed to finish in time. If I didn’t finish… well that unfinished work shot me down to a B or C.
I can’t be the only person that struggled with this. Millionaire’s phone in audition quiz was a speed drill. Lots of people couldn’t make the cut.
Is it related to dyslexia? I can’t spell worth a damn either and sometimes my words get turned around when I write.
Being one of the LAST to leave a test can’t be as frightening as being one of the FIRST.
I remember one calculus final…OMG. I worked my little heart out, first doing the problems I thought I knew, then going back and working on the ones that really stumped me. And after working and toiling and sweating bullets, I looked up at the clock and I’d been at it ONLY TWENTY MINUTES. And it was a three-hour test period!
I went over the test, and then went over it, and then over it one more time, with a horrible, sinking feeling. THANK GOD somebody was braver than I and got up to leave.
My laser like ability to focus and concentrate has been a benefit as a computer programmer/analyst. Once I drill into a project everything around me goes blank. I can look up hours later and wonder where the time went. I work slowly but am extremely meticulous in my programming.
It was only a problem in school with timed tests. I never could manage my time and work fast enough with any courses that required extensive problem solving. Looking back I’d say that I was over thinking. Instead of just doing the problems by rote memory, I was trying to analyze them.
Tests in History, Literature, and anything that just wanted memorized answers to questions weren’t a problem. I still used most of the time but I never worried about not finishing those tests.
I’m embarrassed to say that I think it was a “D”, but the instructor still let me have a “C” on the total class, so I passed.
And suffice to say I have a hat full of war stories about text books which haven’t been published by the beginning of the quarter, so the lecture hall distributes the new text as HANDOUTS, with additional sheets of ERRATA. The book WAS published in time for the third quarter. BRAND, SPANKIN’ NEW TEXT BOOK, NO used editions available.
STILL crummy quality, STILL getting pages passed out for ERRATA sheets, and still jumbled together in incoherent fashion.
After I completely and BARELY passed this beast of a class, I tried to sell the almost-new text back to the bookstore. I paid $10 for it NEW, and was offered THREE WHOLE DOLLARS TO BUY BACK.
I almost dumped it into the trash can, instead.
~VOW
According to Wikipedia, I think what you’re looking for isMental chronometry, though I’ve also heard it referred to as “Speed of Mentation”. I have a friend, who has a seizure disorder, who has a lot of problems with this. She’s not dumb, and can do all sorts of mental tasks to appropriate standard, but it just takes A Long Time. According to the wiki page there may be some correlation with intelligence, but certainly not 100%.
Mental chronometry is a technique used in experimental psychology. It does not refer to individual differences in the speed at which people can think. Usually, experiments which use it are concerned with the speeds at which different sorts of mental task can be done, and will average over the performances of multiple subjects.
The term the OP is looking for may be fluency. However, I do not know if it is a very useful concept in the sort of circumstances described. The actual speed at which an answer is produced will depend on a lot of factors apart from individual mental characteristics: such as the subject matter (some people are good with math, some with language or history or whatever), how recently it has been studied, how alert and motivated the person is at that particular moment, etc.
Isn’t it more logical to assume that there is a curve to speed of answering just as there is a curve to height and intelligence? Being several sigma below the peak may be a serious problem, but it’s probably related to other issues, not a single thing in itself. Being one sigma below the peak may be noticeable in certain settings but so is being one sigma shorter in a basketball game.
I have the same issue with speed. I could never organize a list of anything quickly in my head. I also have a problem spelling out loud, as in spelling bee style, but have no problem writing words properly.
I don’t know if there’s a relation or not there.
And, like the rest of you, I actually went and looked up bradymentation and microdeckia.
I know my Presidents and I certainly know Lincoln comes before Teddy Roosevelt. It just takes me longer to organize it in my head.