Wandering Words

Just got back from a 3-day backpacking trip. *sigh*

I got a kick out of this:



Not exactly the kind of thing you plan.

So, it's been an awful long time since I posted these, but here are some of the latest Scrabble word study graphs. I took another couple of months off a month or two ago, and things are just now clicking back into place for studying regularly. It's at a significantly reduced rate from my studying heyday, but I think it's a healthier pace overall.

	Upcoming Words 4-24 4-24 histogram of words per day by cardbox, through the end of cardbox 3
	Long Upcoming Words 4-24 4-24 histogram of words per day by cardbox, long version through the end of cardbox 6

So, for a lot of good reasons I took another two months off from doing any cardbox quizzing. When I fired up a cardbox quiz yesterday I found that I had 29000 words due. Oomph. I quickly rescheduled that down to 150 and polished that off in no time flat. I was a little bit rusty, but as I found previously it only takes a day or two to work the kinks out and get the anagrammer clicking again. It's just like riding a bike...only not. I have my doubts about whether I'll be able to maintain the vigorous pace I've set before. I have no immediate plans to add in more new words--but we'll see how long that lasts. At any rate, it feels good to be quizzing again. I had my Modified-Kenji Method quizzes for a while, and I've been doing a lot of hook drilling lately, but there's nothing quite like the BIG QUIZ. THE Quiz, you might say. Like before, it's invigorating to come back to it. To come at it with a clearer mind and see so many of the words that were "tough" before, but I see instantly now. Of course, there are also the words that *used* to be easy that I'm not seeing, but it's good to find those out, too. It's all good.

Almost exactly a month ago, I made a post that I subsequently deleted about my latest study foray. I'd been feeling like I was in a bit of a rut, study-wise, just running through my cardbox quizzing. SO, I changed things up a bit. Here's the post I made back then (originally posted on 2/21):

So I decided that I need another break from my cardbox quizzing. I've been quite faithful to it lately (averaging over 1000/day for quite a while now), but I'm not feeling inspired by it. SO, I've set it aside for a couple of weeks. I went ahead and made a list of the 21000ish words that AREN'T in my cardbox database...and started a quiz with all of them in it. As of right now--1800 words in--I'm running around 74% correct. That's kind of cool. I suppose this is somewhat inspired by Kenji (I would link to him, but I guess he got scared off of LJ), or cesarsalad, but mostly I'm just bored. It's fun to see new words. I'm thinking I'll be done in a week or two and go back to the cardbox stuff. In my mind, it comes down the depth of word study versus the breadth of word study. The cardbox system is well designed to increase the depth of word knowledge, but a survey quiz like I'm doing now is better for increasing the breadth quickly. It should be fun!

Well, I finally finished that quiz yesterday evening. I guess I was a little optimistic about finishing it in two weeks--I got distracted with tournaments and hiking and life and all--but it was still a fun venture. My final score was 75.9% correct. Many of those words were ones I knew well that I'd just never been quizzed on, although there were a few total guesses that panned out. Of the words I missed, there were a few that I totally should have seen, but missed, and a few more that I just mistyped, but most were strange beasts and oddities that I have yet to learn. The good news is that now I have a list of 5100 words to focus more closely on. It's kind of nice to pare down the "don't know" list to an *almost* manageable amount. At any rate, now I'll start a quiz on that list (it ought to take me a week or two...*grin*).

I just added the last batch of 150 2-anagram 6s to my cardbox database and ran through them this evening. Yay! I now have every alphagram less than 8 letters with more than one valid anagram in my study rotation. That is awfully useful in so many ways, not the least of which is if I see a word played that I don't know, and I see a valid anagram, it's getting challenged. Of course, all this is predicated on me actually *remembering* what I've studied, but that's a WHOLE other story...

I took a snapshot of these a week and a half ago, but I never got around to posting them. I've been kind of lax about posting in general, but since I had these I figured I'd finally do it. The study has been going fairly well in general. I'm down to just 300 2-anagram 6s left before I finally have everything from length 2-8 with more than one anagram in my study rotation. I keep meaning to just finish those off, but I get distracted by more interesting words. I'm not adding terribly many in general lately, either, because of the rising wave of cardbox 8 words crashing over me in the next month or so. It's already started, but the worst is another week or so out still. I helped my case a little bit earlier this week by using the holiday weekend to study 3500 questions over the course of just two days. Wow, that was a trip. In general, I"ve been working to keep my daily load down below 1000 per day, with some success. It's nice to feel like I can keep up with it without TOO much effort. Other than that, I'm just churning away on 6s and 8s that catch my interest. All the *WAY* patterns, the *BONE* patterns, other random word bits and such that sound cool, like the SMITH* anagrams and the *THM* patterns. Whatever will stick. You never know when it might come in handy. At any rate, word study is humming along. I just am not looking terribly much forward to starting all over again practically from scratch with the Collins list. Ah well...

	Long Upcoming Words 12-18 12-18 histogram of words per day by cardbox, long version through the end of cardbox 6
	Upcoming Words 12-18 12-18 histogram of words per day by cardbox, through the end of cardbox 3

Inspired by Kevin, here is a bigger breakdown of missed questions:

3s (believe it or not):
AES - 7 misses
AHS - 6
EHY - 5
EOS
ALS
ATU

4s:
ARSU - 24 misses
EERS - 19
EHST
AMNO - 16
IKRS
AELR - 15
DELW
EOPS
CINO

5s:
ADERW - 36 misses
AENSW - 35
AMRSU
BELOS - 34
AEMNS - 33
EENSS
AELPS

6s:
AEINRS - 26 misses
AERSTW - 24
AEENSU
EERSTX - 19
AHIKRS
ACEINT
DEIORT

7s:
ABDEERS - 46 misses
ADILMOS - 42
EELOPRS
ADELOSS
EIILMST - 41
AADLMNO - 40
ACEEPRS

8s:
EEIMNORS - 61
AEILOPRT - 42
EEINRRST
CEILNORS - 41
AACINORT - 40
EINORSSU - 39

How many times have you gotten any particular word wrong on your Zyzzyva cardbox quizzing?? Have you gotten any *one* *question* wrong more than 61 times? That's how many times I've missed ( this alphagram )

So I pushed hard over the weekend and got over the backlog caused by adding all the rest of the type II 8s. I feel like I'm in a pretty good space right now as far as daily quiz levels go, as long as I don't go and add a whole load of words again...

	Upcoming Words 11-06 11-06 histogram of words per day by cardbox, through the end of cardbox 3
	Long Upcoming Words 11-06 11-06 histogram of words per day by cardbox, long version through the end of cardbox 6

So, I did a rather silly thing yesterday. For whatever reason, I had the idea stuck in my head that I'd already added all the Type II 8s to my Zyzzyva cardbox system. I was doing various word searches and had all the Type II 8s pulled up at the moment. On a whim, I decided to go ahead and add them to my cardboxes. Since I figured they were already in there, I didn't think it would do anything. I pulled up a new cardbox quiz and found 400 some odd new questions for me. Doh. Now I'm scrambling to catch up again--especially since I don't get any much study in on club nights (like last night) anyway. Ah well... At least I'm learning some fun new words!

It's been a solid four months since I posted any of my zyzzyva cardbox graphs. A lot of that has to do with the two months of not studying at all, but now that I'm back to studying again, I figure it's about time to post again. My milestone of getting all the 7s in yesterday might have been something of a motivator, but it's all good. You still can't see any of the cardbox 9 questions showing up yet. Someday... Anyway, it's all good.

	Upcoming Words 10-16 10-16 histogram of words per day by cardbox, through the end of cardbox 3
	Long Upcoming Words 10-16 10-16 histogram of words per day by cardbox, long version through the end of cardbox 6

So, after studying a grand total of 1069 words in all of last week (well under my average daily load), I decided to hit the Zyzzyva cardbox study again today. I've got a lot of words to go, still. I felt good about the time off for the tournament, post-tournament analysis, and a day or two of strictly recuperative time, but it's time to push ahead. I dumped in another hundred or so sevens and had at it. They went pretty quickly. Yay. I'm interested to see what kind of state my head is in before Dayton. Maybe I really should take a day or two off of my study before I play there--like I keep meaning to do before some tournament but I never quite have the discipline to not study at all. I guess it's better than the opposite problem. I've been doing some JTs the last few days, too, which has been nice. I've been feeling the 4s and 5s getting a bit rusty on there, so I should keep it up to keep them fresh.

I finished the JT 7s with 112 seconds on my clock just now. Dave still beat me by 27 seconds, but it just felt REALLY good to come close...for once. Ah well...back to my cardbox...

So I dropped the last couple hundred 2 anagram 8s in my cardbox system today. I got between half and two-thirds right on the first pass, which is nice. I threw in a dollop of 7s for good measure. My next goal is finish those off. I'm optimistic that they might go fairly quickly. Many of the hundred-plus words I did today were easy, familiar words that just hadn't made it into the cardboxes yet. Hopefully the other 3000ish will be more of the same. I celebrated by getting 100% on the JT 7s with 50 seconds left on my clock. I'll take it. I suppose you could say that I'm boning up for Reno, but my study schedule generally bears little to no correlation to my tournament schedule. I just study, and wherever I've gotten to before the tournament is what will have to do. I would kinda like to finish out the 7s before Dayton, though. Just to keep things tidy. I'm still hovering around the year mark before everything 2-8 is in my cardbox system. Maybe I can speed that up a bit now that the cardbox 7s have relented.