Originally Posted by
ruprecht
Just to be clear, the problem wasn’t with the identification of all possible permutations and combinations - that’s what study is for.
The problem was he was treating them all as discrete responses, and it was taking too long to identify which situation he was in and then waiting several seconds to figure out what to do as he mentally rifled through his 16 pages of notes.
Agreed, your student did a great job of studying.
The question then is could the permutations be simplified? There are techniques for doing that, perhaps Karnaugh maps used in computer-science. Not saying you should know that, but that's where a collaboration with a scientist in an appropriate field may help. It also addresses your concern that there is no pathway from an enumeration to something useful in flight. There often are solutions to what looks intractable on first inspection. But that means remaining open to the possibility.