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📜 WAYPOINT LESSON

Triage in three bins

⭐⭐⭐ advanced⏳ 10 min read📍 Lesson 238 of 256

Answer now, return later, eliminate-and-guess — and bin decisions are final for the pass.

Question triage in three bins. On first contact with any question, bin it:

  • Bin A — answer now: you can name the mechanism and see the finish line. Do it, move on.
  • Bin B — return later: you recognize the shape but the trace will take real time. Mark, move.
  • Bin C — eliminate-and-guess: after 30 honest seconds you cannot even name the mechanism. Eliminate impossible options (type-impossible, bounds-impossible), pick the survivor, mark for a Pass-2 look if time remains.

The discipline that makes triage work: bin decisions are final for the pass. Re-litigating a bin choice mid-pass is how the clock dies. Triage is trained — every timed set in this course (module 4, 17, 18) was secretly a triage drill; from here on, run the bins deliberately.