Putting it on paper

[Phil Reynolds]

Going very slightly off-topic, this reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask for a while now. Are the contestants in the studio able to see the letters selection on a monitor, or do they have to write them down? I ask because when I was due to audition for the show a few years ago, I tried practising at home under what I knew to be 'audition conditions' - i.e. writing the letters down as they were called - and found to my surprise that it was a lot harder to 'see' words when looking at the letters on paper than when looking at them on the TV screen. I've no idea why this should be, but I wasn't surprised when subsequently I missed some quite easy spots at the audition. If I applied again and managed to get on the show, this would worry me.

[Jon Corby]

Are the contestants in the studio able to see the letters selection on a monitor, or do they have to write them down?

No, you have a monitor embedded in the desk in front of you in the studio (although in the new set this is covered with a sheet of glass, so you get all kinds of glare and reflections off it and it's not actually as comfortable as it used to be).

I'm like you in this respect, I sucked balls at my audition because I had to write everything down (well, that's what I'm blaming it on anyway), and I hadn't bothered to practise like this. It made a huge difference to me (I never normally write anything down) and in fact the only part of the audition I did well on was conundrums - because they're all neatly printed in clear bold type and held up. Maybe it would help to take a big marker pen with you so you can write a little bolder? Dunno.

[Matt Morrison]

found to my surprise that it was a lot harder to 'see' words when looking at the letters on paper than when looking at them on the TV screen.

I'd imagine it has something to do with the inconsistencies of handwriting. Looking at a computer-written selection of letters in a standard font of standard letter size presumably removes potential interpretation barriers from your brain being able to concentrate on the letters, whereas with handwriting perhaps the brain has to do some level of 'reading' the letters before it can assemble them into words.

[Phil Reynolds]

I sucked balls at my audition

One way of getting picked I suppose. Did Damian take you into a private room for that?

Maybe it would help to take a big marker pen with you so you can write a little bolder?

There might be something in that. I might practise when the new series starts.

[Charlie Reams]

I've taken the liberty of splitting this into a new topic.

In my heats and series finals, I wrote down the letters religiously, but in CoC I decided that it was basically pointless and just looked at the monitor. It's sometimes useful if you have a common suffix like -ING to put your fingers over those letters, which is difficult on the monitor, but I've found I don't really need to do that any more.

[David O'Donnell]

I am the opposite. I find it more difficult to see the words unless they are written down as two concentric circles of vowels in the middle and consonants on the outside. In the numbers I find it difficult if I am writing down the numbers for some reason. I much prefer to just work out a solution from looking at the monitor.

[Kirk Bevins]

I'd imagine it has something to do with the inconsistencies of handwriting. Looking at a computer-written selection of letters in a standard font of standard letter size presumably removes potential interpretation barriers from your brain being able to concentrate on the letters, whereas with handwriting perhaps the brain has to do some level of 'reading' the letters before it can assemble them into words.

I think there is some truth in this. When people test me, if they write the I with the 'feet' and not sans-serif my brain processes it as a T and I find it hard to picture it as an 'I' and am consequently not as sharp as I could be.

[Lesley Jeavons]

This isn't quite on topic, having never played in the studio, but...

...when I write down the letters I have to seperate my consonants on the left and vowels on the right (especially to ensure I don't use one vowel twice), and then use the screen to glance at to see if the layout makes any words jump out at me.

... and with the numbers, I have to write them down in sequence lowest to highest.

Not sure if I'd do as well without doing this (must try) - I feel it all has to be methodical before I can even start to work on a solution.

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm often surprised that people are more effective by just looking at the letters in a line. I can't play like that at all. I don't know how much is training or whether some people are naturally better that way. Those of you who prefer to look at the letters as they are in a line - has it always been that way with you? Also with ING, for example, I often write down the six other letters separately, as well the separate nine (which aren't in a line). But that's probably why I'm crap at conundrums.

[Ben Hunter]

This isn't quite on topic, having never played in the studio, but...

...when I write down the letters I have to seperate my consonants on the left and vowels on the right (especially to ensure I don't use one vowel twice), and then use the screen to glance at to see if the layout makes any words jump out at me.

... and with the numbers, I have to write them down in sequence lowest to highest.

Not sure if I'd do as well without doing this (must try) - I feel it all has to be methodical before I can even start to work on a solution.

I always do the numbers in my head, I never feel like I have time to write them down.

[Michael Wallace]

One thing I've wondered is how many (if indeed, at all) of the (apparently many) people who go for the writing them in a circle approach find this easier because of practice with the sorts of 'word wheel' puzzles you get in a lot of papers.

(I'm not actually convinced by this argument - I imagine it's more just so that the letters are all as close together as possible, but I like the concept)

I used to write them down, and I think I did when I was on the show - but now I'm better off just looking at the screen, possibly because my handwriting is terrible. I might jot down the other letters if there's a common ending, but rarely find that actually helps.

[David Williams]

After my audition I developed a method of writing down the letters on a sort of invisible grid. Vowels (in order) on the top line, NRST on the next, down to QXZK in the bottom left hand corner. It helped me to concentrate on the most promising lines, not missing likely suffixes and prefixes etc. Most of the time it worked for me, though I do remember being quite pleased with spotting UNLESS in a miserable set of letters, declaring six, and only then looking at the display where SEQUINS was pretty much spelt out, and obvious to my opponent, Richard Whiteley and all the audience.

For me, though, conundrums are very different. I've done crosswords all my life, and anagrams are the same however the letters are arranged.

There's a thesis in this somewhere.

David

[Jason Larsen]

That's good!

Now, it shouldn't be hard for me to find good words. I'm a very terrible handwriter.

[Kevin Thurlow]

I like D O'D's idea of having two circles - (I got by with one) a straight line might make you just see the letters in the order they already were - so if ING appeared in that order in the slection, you might miss something better as you were obsessing about "ing" endings. There was a thread about this ages ago, but people have tried (bit of a recap)

not writing at all
3 x 3 matrix
one circle
two circles
row of consonants and separate row of vowels
a clump of consonants and clump of vowels
segregating ING (or IEST or TION etc) - I used this sometimes after writing them in circle
DW's imaginary grid
writing a longish word down and then looking at what's left. (I have tried this after a COLIN where I spotted HURRIED immediately, and assumed there was nothing else, when the remaining letters were NU. As the opponent was Chris Wills, he noticed what I hadn't....)

and probably other methods as well.....

[Lee Simmonds]

Like most people I never used to bother writing anything down when watching the show but once I knew I was going for the audition I started doing so knowing that you would have to then. It did not occur to me to write them down in anything other than a straight line, possibly to save space in the book that I was using to keep a record of my performances against the contestants.

By the time I was on the show I was pretty used to this and won my first three shows this way. Now here comes the interesting bit. I had a break of two weeks before the next filming block and immersed myself in the statistics on Mike Brown's countdown page and former contestants' experiences. On there, I read that someone found that by writing the letters in a circle it helped them and so I practised with this method over the next few days and stuck with it when I went back for filming. Needless to say, I lost that game, so I guess the moral is to have a method and don't change it!

And without a doubt, do not write the numbers down, you need all the time you can get in the studio.

[Jason Larsen]

You all are very interesting!

[Kirk Bevins]

And without a doubt, do not write the numbers down, you need all the time you can get in the studio.

I disagree. Whilst Rachel is putting the numbers up you can write them down. During the clock, I get 1 away and then write it down using bidmas and no equals sign (a bit like in the 'notes' box on apterous) just to make sure I don't forget the method. Then I look for spot on. If needs be I can say not written down if I get it just in time. Too many people declare something not written down and then forget the method - very easy to do under pressure.

[David Williams]

I've never written the numbers down, but it must make sense to do so. While the letters are going up you can start thinking of words, but there's absolutely nothing you can do with the numbers until you know the target. So use the time the only way you can. Now all I need to do is think of a way of writing them down that is more helpful than six in a row with the big ones on the left.

[Craig Beevers]

I did write selections down on my first few shows, but realised it was 'unnatural' and I'd be better off just playing like I did anywhere else.

I can anagram perfectly well whatever order the letters are in and prefer seeing the letters in clear tile form anyway.

[Michael Wallace]

While the letters are going up you can start thinking of words, but there's absolutely nothing you can do with the numbers until you know the target. So use the time the only way you can. Now all I need to do is think of a way of writing them down that is more helpful than six in a row with the big ones on the left.

I'm not entirely convinced - I start working out what sorts of numbers I can hit as soon as I can. This is most obviously doable when you do 4 large, since after the first two are out you can (theoretically) work out all the targets. For example, if you pick 3 large and get 3, 7, 9, 25 you can straight away make mental note of 75, 175, 225, 250, 400 and so on, which are useful markers when the target arrives and you can dive for the right one rather than *then* start working out what you can do.

[Martin Gardner]

I'm much better at finding nines than shorter words, because ignoring the order of the letters, there's only one possibility i.e. using all nine letters, but for eights there are nine possibilities - leaving every letter out in turn, that is to say 9!/(8!*1!).

I don't write the letters down at home but I used to just to keep a record, not to actually play with. I think people who write them down in circles etc, this is not meant to be judgmental but I think it's due to weak(er) anagramming ability. I don't *really* need to see the letters to play at all, although I'm really bad at anagrams, I can't do them at all I just have to "recall" the words instead of doing them by anagrams.

[Gavin Chipper]

I'm much better at finding nines than shorter words, because ignoring the order of the letters, there's only one possibility i.e. using all nine letters, but for eights there are nine possibilities - leaving every letter out in turn, that is to say 9!/(8!*1!).

I don't write the letters down at home but I used to just to keep a record, not to actually play with. I think people who write them down in circles etc, this is not meant to be judgmental but I think it's due to weak(er) anagramming ability. I don't *really* need to see the letters to play at all, although I'm really bad at anagrams, I can't do them at all I just have to "recall" the words instead of doing them by anagrams.

But when you "recall" words, presumably you do quite well at common Countdown words and words you've trained with, but don't you then struggle with words that aren't common on Countdown but still common everyday words?

[Stewart Holden]

I do all my Scrabble word study based on unscrambling alphabetised sets of letters ("alphagrams"), i.e. AEINRST and so forth. Similarly when I'm playing I always start with each rack in alphabetical order and only sometimes shuffle it around after that. In my experience it's very difficult to see how some people can see letter arranged as say, AAEGINTV and then VNAGETIA and then GINTEVAA and then INVATGEA and always come up with the same answer; there has to be a fixed order from which one can effectively turn to the right entry in one's mental card system and pull out the correct answer(s). But that's just me and I've been playing long enough to know that there are as many different systems for learning and recognition as there are players.

With regard to Countdown I use alphagram-based recognition for everything, including on the show itself where I always waited for all nine letters to go up before writing them down in alphabetical order on my sheet. If looking for an eight then I would quite often hover my pen over each of the nine letters in order, blocking it out so that I was effectively just asking myself nine different alphagram questions in 30 seconds to see if any of them produced an answer.

[Martin Gardner]

I'm much better at finding nines than shorter words, because ignoring the order of the letters, there's only one possibility i.e. using all nine letters, but for eights there are nine possibilities - leaving every letter out in turn, that is to say 9!/(8!*1!).

I don't write the letters down at home but I used to just to keep a record, not to actually play with. I think people who write them down in circles etc, this is not meant to be judgmental but I think it's due to weak(er) anagramming ability. I don't *really* need to see the letters to play at all, although I'm really bad at anagrams, I can't do them at all I just have to "recall" the words instead of doing them by anagrams.

But when you "recall" words, presumably you do quite well at common Countdown words and words you've trained with, but don't you then struggle with words that aren't common on Countdown but still common everyday words?

True, something HANDBAG would be really difficult for me to spot, but ANNELID jumps out at me (NAILED + N).

[Gavin Chipper]

True, something HANDBAG would be really difficult for me to spot, but ANNELID jumps out at me (NAILED + N).

Has that never made you think of changing your methods though?

Also, a lot of top players don't write down the letters and just look at them as they are on the screen, whereas I think most "normal" people would find it easier to write the letters down in some scramble or grid or something. What's interesting is that a lot of the top players were fairly normal to start with (some have said so and I believe them) but using the various learnt methods of word-finding, it's easier for them to just leave the letters in a line as they are on the screen. But with the more obscure words, that they could only spot "afresh" as they haven't trained with them, I wonder if some of them might be making it harder for themselves by relying on their nine-in-a-line technique.