Terrible at countdown

pragmatic

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I'm terrible at countdown, absolutely dire. Both mental arithmetic and anagrams seem to be beyond me, it's like a shameful anti-tallent.

Is anyone equally pathetic at this or just rubbish at something so many other people see to have mastered (or are at least better on average) then you?
 
Don't panic, I'm equally as poor! I'm not sure if you saw 8 out of 10 cats do countdown? I am worse than those guys :).
 
It turns out Jimmy cars crap at it too, most boring 8 out of 10 cats ive ever seen.
 
Don't worry mate I'm sure the more you watch it the better you'll get.

Here's one for you to mull over...
 

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I don't even know what the rules for the maths are (there are rules?)

I'd go

8 x 100
+ 7 + (3-1) = 809
 
It's ok to be bad at Countdown, but just be good at the Lottery :)
 
If I can 'see' the conundrum answer within the 1st few seconds I get t 9/10 otherwise forget it and the Maths too
 
I think it is one of those things where your brain gets trained and accustomed to seeing patterns as you do more and more.

Many years ago when I first met my wife-to-be, she would often do the Times Crossword (the cryptic one) and I tried to help.

Initially I couldn't make much sense of it. She would come up with answers and have to explain how she came up with them. After some time I cam accustomed to the language used and could do it on my own.

I think the same is true of Countdown. Play Scrabble and you will probably be rubbish. But play it everyday and you will begin to see patterns of letters that form reusable syllables which you can join together to make words.

Not sure if he is still on, but last week there was a 15 or 16 year old boy who could solve the conumdrums before the countdown clock had barely moved. I can't beleive he had time to work those out - more likely that he has done so many of them - perhaps he has countdown quiz books that the patterns just stick in his head and are instantly recognisable.

I often wonder whether being 'random' the numbers round ever comes out with combinations that are totally obvious such as

Target = 400
Numbers = 100, 50, 9, 7, 4, 1

Or whether the target number isn't random at all.

Or whether, being recorded they stop the show and re-run the target number generator.



Cheers,

Nigel
 
they have had some obvious number rounds in the past that i can remember.

i can't recall the exact details but there would be numbers such as 100, 50, 8, 1, 2, 4 and the target is 402 and the presenters would just kind of laugh and it would be a complete waste of the 30 second timer.
 
Only the conundrums can never get them. I've still got the countdown board game somewhere from the 80's.
 

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