They (probably) do only reviews, no new sentences.
After a certain point, having used Clozemaster for long enough, there simply are no more new/unseen sentences. It’s inevitable that after a certain time, literally every sentence gives 32 points. Provided you don’t use multiple choice but another mode, like text input.
They reached the point where their vocabulary is large enough for them (be it the 3000, 5000, 10000 or 50000 most common words), and now they use Clozemaster only to retain their vocabulary.
You played 1800 sentences in 6 days. (The week is not over yet.) That’s 300 sentences per day, which takes (me, at least) 30 minutes. Had you played only reviews, that would have been 57,600 points (1800*32). And it’s still Sunday. With another 300 sentences, you’d easily have made 67,200 points a week, by playing 30 minutes a day.
If you play 45 instead of 30 minutes a day, playing only reviews, that’s an additional 150 sentences a day. 450 sentences a day times 7 days times 32 points equals 100,800 points a week. It’s inevitable to reach 6-figure-scores when playing 45 minutes every day. And some people play much more than 45 minutes a day.
That’s your answer. The people leading the scoreboard aren’t those who’re only halfway through the 1000 most common words collections. With the standard settings, showing 100% sentences only every 180 days, that wouldn’t yield three-hundred 32-pointers literally every day.
You achieved “only” 32,000 points a week despite practicing an hour each day because many of the sentences you play give only 4 points. I presume you’re either below the 3000 most common words collection or you’re neglecting your reviews.
Having looked at your profile, you’ve played 20.5k sentences but mastered “only” 12.5k of them. So you’re neglecting your reviews. Get these numbers closer together and you’ll also reach six-figure-scores soon.
Since Sunday is not over yet, you played 1 hour a day, on average. Which is more than enough to reach 100,000 points a week. You’ll easily beat those people in a few months, once you reach the point where every sentence you play is already at 100%.
You don’t have to have reached the 50,000 most common words collection for that to happen. You can simply cycle through your 100–4000 most common words collections. By the time you finished reviewing the 4000 MCW collection, the 100 MCW becomes due again.
10,000 points isn’t unreasonable at all. 300 sentences with 32 points each is 9600 points, with 30 minutes of effort.
You invest the same or more time into Clozemaster than these super-scorers do. The reason why they still outrank you is that their played/mastered ratio is higher than yours. Focus on your reviews for a while and you’ll outrank them, since you invest more time than they do.
I’m not saying you should stop playing 4-pointers. I’m saying to give it a bit of time. Be patient. It’s inevitable that one day, all sentences you play will give you 32 points instead of just 4 or 8 points. And then you’ll easily reach the numbers I mentioned above with exactly the same input you invest today.
The time you spend on other methods is time you don’t spend on turning your 4-pointers into 32-pointers. It’s effort that doesn’t translate into the leaderboard. That doesn’t mean this valuable study time is lost or wasted. Don’t lose the goal out of sight. Don’t focus too much on the leaderboard. The goal is to learn the language, not to see your name listed among the top 10. But if you’ll shift more of your focus on your reviews and on improving your played/mastered ratio, you’ll too have a good chance of easily ranking among the top 10 soon.
I also want to add that it’s completely normal (due to the nature of spaced-repetition learning) that it all works in waves. Some weeks, I lead the leaderboard in the top 1 spot by a wide margin (because all my reviews came due), other weeks I’m nowhere near the top 10 (because I don’t have any reviews due that week and start a new collection, where literally every sentence I play in that week gives only 8 or 16 points). Pay attention: It’s not consistently the same group of 10 people in the top 10 every single week. It’s easy to forget (or not notice) that, which leads us to believe that it’s always the same people and that there are some super-scorers who are just that much better than us. Although there are definitely some extremely dedicated people using Clozemaster for 2–3 hours or even more literally every single day, I’d argue they are the exception. Many people have other hobbies besides learning languages, use Clozemaster as only one of their methods to learn a language as you do, or simply have children or other obligations and cannot spend more than 10–15 minutes a day. I’d say that using Clozemaster for 30–45 minutes every day and then spend even more time using other methods is already way above the average, so good on you! You’re already super motivated.
