Cube Counting Pitfall to Watch out For!

[hoylematt]

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Don't know if anyone else has experienced this but this happened to me on my first DAT and I am going to avoid it this time.

The 4th cube figure in, was this massively complicated pile of blocks with an optical illusion. It took me like 50% longer to count it and I was second guessing myself so I double counted how many blocks were total so that i wouldn't screw up. When I went to answer the question, it said "How many of the blocks have 5 sides painted?" I answered 2, or whatever it was.

I clicked next, and it went to the next figure! I was like no they didn't! I don't know how often this happens and if it will save anyone any time but I am going to check this time for each cube figure how many problems there are and make sure they don't trick me again. That question could be answered in 2 seconds without counting anything!

Sorry I had to tell someone cause that really made me mad and threw me off bigtime!

 

[rmm30]

wait. what exactly happened? you spent a large amnt of time counting cubes in a figure and when you read the question you found that you did not need to count all the cubes? then you clicked next and a different question involved the same cube diagram? thanks for the heads up i just want to make sure i know what ur talking about.

 

[hoylematt]

After taking forever to count the stack, I answered the first question which I could have figured out easily from just counting the 5 side painted cubes. When I clicked for the next question it went to the next cube diagram. There was only 1 question for that massive stack and it did not require counting.

 

[ZFT]

how many questions are usually associated with each figure? I heard it was 2 only.

 

[DemQ]

wow thats messed up of ADA. thanks for sharing

 

[omarbasha]

HOld upppp... so you're counting every single cube then substracting all but the 5 sided cubes? thats what it sounds like man..

 

[Sisero68]

the OP is just saying he tallied all the cube sides and broke them down into groups say

1 side = 4
2 side = 3
3 side = 5
4 side = 7
5 side = 2

total = 21

using this strategy to answer any following questions usually 2-4 for each shape (this may save time), but this shape only had 1 question so he wasted 1-3 minutes counting all the cubes when all he needed to do was count the 5 sided ones and move on. (correct me if im wrong OP)

i have been using a different strategy for myself that i have been able to move through the cube counting faster then even the OP's strategy and it evolves no tedious counting. just a little memorization.

5 sided = always on top of vertical stack no other cubes on any side
4 sided = A) middle of verticel stack no other cubes on any side
B) end of row no cubes on top (NOT corners)
3 sided = A) end of row with cubes on top
B) corner no cubes on top
C) middle of row no cubes on top
D) middle of vertical stack cubes on top and one side
2 sided = A) corner cubes on top
B) middle of row cubes on top (open on unseen side)
1 sided = this guy has to be berried and should be easy to spot (double rows results in this many times)

(dont forget to count hidden blocks) as you can see 3 sided cubes are teh only ones that are hard to determine quickly and i find i save more time personally with this method.

just keep practicing looking at the cube diagrams using this association method then after you have a value, verify you are correct in non timed practice. after a few times going through the cube counting it should be second nature to recognize the sides by a cubes location without needing to count each side.

i hope this helps some of you