I am studying life-and-death problems. Really simple problems are OK, but if the probelm is at all difficult, it takes me a very long time to solve it. Is there any kind of knack for solving life-and-death problems or an oder for analysing them? Life-and-death study is good. It depends on your go strength, but if you are a kyu player, I recommend you to do large numbers of easy problems rather than tackling difficult problems. It's important to develop your reading ability, but the first priority is to learn to identify the vital point of a shape on sight. When you do difficult problems, it's OK to look at the answers. The trick is to learn the correct shapes. If you are a dan player, you should try to solve problems without looking at the answers as far as possible. Even so, I recommend you to do a large number of problems that don't cause you stress. The important thing is to learn to recognize the shapes and to develop your intuitition.