19 May 2026 · 6 min · Seo Siwoo
The second test of a range edge
The first touch of a range edge is usually the loud one. The bar is tall, the room leans in, and someone wants a decision. We mark the touch and we wait. The second return to the same price, often with a shorter bar and less hurry, is the test we ask students to annotate as the honest one.
Honest does not mean safe. The second test is sometimes the one that breaks. The sheet therefore has two boxes under the edge: “held” and “left”. You tick one after the bar closes. If you cannot tick either, the test is unfinished and the position size stays at the small practice unit. Unfinished is a permitted state. It is better than a story.
A produce buyer who sits with us on Thursdays — his letters are on the reviews page — started circling every first poke. His card from March is full of circles and almost empty of ticks. By May the ticks were there, and several of them said “left”. He did not enjoy those. He did stop treating the first exciting bar as a finished fact.
How to mark it, if you are practicing alone: draw the edge once, in pencil, from the range you already trust. Number the touches. Write the close of touch two in the margin. Then choose held or left. If you notice you are redrawing the edge so that touch two looks successful, that is the moment to put the pencil down. The Range Desk calls this defending the drawing, and evening five is blunt about it.
Chart sittings are the right hour if you have a sheet where the second test is ambiguous and you want another pair of eyes before you tick a box. Bring the print large enough that the two touches are not sitting on top of each other.