Lightning mode: Difficult questions within the test's time
Tests give each question a set time, about 16 seconds on the HSPT Verbal part and about 57 on ISEE Quantitative Reasoning. Answering correctly comes first; answering within that time takes practice of its own.
Once you pass Difficult, the highest of the three levels, in a topic, your tutor may suggest Lightning mode. It gives you new Difficult exercises with a clock set to the test's time for each question. Pass 3 of 4 in time and the topic gets a lightning bolt. Your times, a chart in My growth, show how much less time you need than when you passed Difficult. In a study you made yourself, the target is your own time.
Find it:My growthA topic you passed at DifficultStart Lightning mode
A federal review of 27 studies of math help for struggling students rated timed practice as strong evidence for fluency. Fluency means knowing facts and steps well enough to use them quickly. It advises short rounds on what students already know, beating your own score, and keeping progress private.
What we built
Lightning mode opens only after you pass a topic's Difficult checkpoint with no clock. Its new Difficult exercises each come with a target time. Only you see your times, unless you share your card.
Where the evidence stops
The studies were in elementary school, and timing was one part of larger programs.
Under pressure, adults with the most working memory, how much you can hold in mind at once, did worse on the hardest math problems. In grades 1 and 2, math anxiety went with lower scores, most for children with strong working memory. Across 238 studies, test anxiety went with lower results, most in the middle grades.
What we built
In Lightning mode the clock stays on screen and never stops you. Your tutor never tells you to hurry, and praises your method, never you.
A quick mistake and a slow one are different mistakes
In large sets of answers and their times, from arithmetic to chess, the errors in quick answers differed clearly from the errors in slow ones.
What we built
In Lightning mode, feedback follows your result and your time. A quick miss is probably a slip, so your tutor suggests reading the question again. A slow miss gets the step taught again.
Where the evidence stops
The study described answers and times. It didn't test feedback.
In a large test of adults on computers, taking longer went with better problem solving, and more so on harder problems.
What we built
Your tutor says the test's time is an average, so some questions take longer. If you pass over the time, it asks how you did it and shows a shorter way beside yours.
Where the evidence stops
The study tested adults on computer tasks. Students on test questions may differ.