NON line counting techniques for TFE ???

[hunterx2]

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Hi guys,

Reading through recent posts it seems like the tried and true "line counting" method for TFE no longer works as well as before, and people have suggested learning how to "visualize" the objects instead.

But how the heck are you supposed to visualize an oftentimes complicated 3D object in only 40 seconds? I got 100% on TFE on CDP test #1 using only my visual-spatial skills without any special techniques, but it was untimed and I took over half an hour on just TFE alone. And trying to "reason" through the problems like on this thread

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=528643&page=4

also takes way too long, up to several minutes per question if the object has many parts. So does anybody have any easy tricks or methods to do TFE quickly? I am especially looking for systematic methods that work every time with the same approach, like the cube counting method and the tic-tac-toe grid method for other sections. Trying to get through with spatial reasoning alone means that you have to vary the approach every time, which eats up precious time.

Thanks.

 

[ekephant]

I don't think there is a really quick systematic way to solve TFE problems like there is for cube counting and hole punching. But one thing you could do is look at the all of the given views and all of the answer choices before you begin visualizing the shapes. Once you get the basic idea of what the object should look like, you could start looking at the slight differences between the answer choices and looking at the given views to see if they match up. From here you can start to eliminate the answer choices and will hopefully quickly be able to pick the correct answer. Once you've done a few practice tests, you'll be able to quickly recognize what certain shapes should look like from each view.

 

[hunterx2]

Is there any specific thing you do to eliminate choices? In Crack PAT, I can pretty much always narrow it down to 2 choices immediately because the lines don't match, but again since they made it more difficult you can't count on doing this.