I get the point, and I would say that in the single instance that Dick Clark told you "Hurry, Brandon! Hurry!" that you leapfrog the one in order to salvage a tie. The point I'm making is that your partner is assuming that you're going to try to give clues to the topic that comes up and not to look at the box bug-eyed, blurt out "Pass! and move on to the next, that you're going to at least have a go. This goes back to the question of why not pass on the 50, rack up $1,000 in score money and then pick off the last easy one with the remaining seconds: your partner is expecting you to lead the dance, and every time you do something against convention that's unexpected, you end up stomping each others's feet, instead of doing it the normal way and working your way to the $10,000.
A final note to Brandon's point: will you remember your tactical bit with time running down? We talk lots about the lights and music and money and pressure, and I'll go to that most learned individual, Mike Tyson, who said "everyone has a plan until they get hit in the mouth". You don't get to look at the clock, and if you do it means you're taking your concentration away from the task at hand.
