this has gone from my most dreaded section to one of my favorite sections! i don't know why though.
some pointers:
whatever's shown - THAT is the outside - don't even think about folding it up towards you, because then the underside would be facing out, and you don't really know what that looks like!
you'll find that with the really crazy looking shapes - at least with CDP - oftentimes all of the choices except for the right one are actually not the main "crazy" piece of the cutout.
err... that might be all i have, you're right, it's hard to explain. i know you said you've looked at other threads, but the "wicked sick pat tutorial" thread was the one that totally transformed my pattern folding abilities. i've been getting 14/15 on the last few CDP tests. look it up!
edit: the pattern folding section in the wicked sick thread is i think somewhere in the middle of those 5 or so pages