After the high of yesterday’s much improved Brain Age, I’m disappointed to say that today was a bit of a bust.
As the old saying goes, one step forward, two steps back.
Pre-Brain Age Training
As yesterday worked so well, I dived straight into a Sudoku puzzle and came out with my fastest time due to no mistakes – 13 min 57.09 seconds. Very happy with that!
I followed up with some Reading Aloud, my reading syllables at 5.6 per second, and did some Calculations x 25 where I got my second fastest time, 1 min 12.00. Starting out extremely well, I think I’m ready for today’s test.
Or am I…
Brain Age Training
Today’s Self Control is the Connect Maze. Haven’t tried this for a while, so looking forward to seeing how quickly I can navigate this. Matching A to 1, all the way through to M and 13, I managed my fastest time yet of 1 min 6.36 and was second among my friends. One friend is like thirty seconds faster than me, so it’s a tall mountain to climb, but I’m progressing well.
Amazingly, my second test was Calculations x25. I just trained for this, so I should blitz through this, right? Well, I got my fourth best time of 1 min 36 and it’s mostly because I got stuck on one sum. It’s one that always seems to catch me out – not sure why – and it’s 7 x 7. Of course it’s 49, but on the spot my brain just stopped working and I held on there for a lot longer than I should have.
Annoying when just a little while before I’d clocked up a 1 min 12.00 time, but when it counted, I guess I started to feel the pressure.
The final one was a new game – Continuous Countdown. The idea is you’re presented with a number at the top and you have to keep subtracting the number it tells you to, placing the new answer in the box below. Each new answer replaces the last.
It sounds simple and quite fun, but as I kept writing the answers in with the stylus, the game once again struggled to pick up my writing. I mean, it was confusing 5 with 9. I swear my writing is not that bad!
It really threw me and while my time wasn’t too bad – 1 min 47.15 – I could probably have smashed through this so much quicker.
The game seemed to think so as well because it presented me with my worst Brain Age yet – 68! I was actually gobsmacked by this, I certainly didn’t feel like today’s showing was worse than Day Two, which I’ll freely admit was a poor performance all round. Today it just seemed like momentary lapses cost me dearly.
Disappointingly, the game clocked my Processing Speed and Short-Term Memory as that of an 80 year old and Self Control of a 44 year old. Mad considering just yesterday I was told my Processing Speed was that of a 25 year old. That’s…quite a variance.
I’m not entirely sure about today’s results if I’m honest. I certainly don’t think that was my worst performance and I think the game has been more than a little harsh on me. Considering I clocked my best time on the Connect Maze – admittedly, it’s still not great – and my fourth best Calculation time, I felt I did ok.
Once again, though, I feel a bit let down by the game’s inability to pick up my writing. I’ve tried to adapt it to suit the game and it seemed to flow much better on Calculations x 25 and it did pick it up a bit better on the Word game yesterday, but then on other things it seems to have no idea what I’m doing. Couple that with the issues I’ve been having with the IR camera, I’m starting to think it may never be able to calculate a fair brain age for me.
I have to say, it’s inspiring me to go back to the DS Original which is probably not a good thing for a brand new game.
Fresh heads tomorrow, though, positive thinking. It can’t get any worse, surely.
