Perfect Method to Answer a Question

[Chewy0087]

Hey there, been wondering about this for quite a while now, sorry if it's in the wrong section;

What's the perfect way to answer a difficult structured question?

I'm talking about long difficult intuitive questions here, which occurred to me when I was trying some of the past Aptitude Tests for Oxford undergraduate physics.

Doing almost all of the paper I was lucky in that I've read into different bits of science not at all related to the syllabus so I was able to answer a lot of the 'tricky' ones which would be very challenging had you not known the specific way to look at the question/formula.

So say you see a difficult question and you think, i have no idea how to answer this, but you had to give it a go (without researching) how would you go about it? I mean, try and write out the problem algebraically? Look for related formulas? Try and related to past questions you've seen? I'm genuinely interested to hear how people solve problems, I seem to simply stumble onto answers or not find them at all, although given enough time I can usually get my head around them.

I'm looking particularly for advice from people who're taking/have taken degree's and who're very good at analysing& solving problems. Any help is appreciated.

Sorry for the huge paragraph =P

 

[aostraff]

I think more people would be on the same page if you specify the type of question (physics, math, how to get to Y from X) because I think this seems too general of a question to ask. Personally, I think you have to have a good sense of 'how much' you don't know about the question if that is describable in an appropriate fashion here.