Here is a situation:
One teacher conducts the same activity in class during the first ten minutes of each lesson: she shows the back side of a flashcard to the students, describes what is depicted on the flash card and asks students to tell her what it is. After having received about four or five answers, she turns the front side of the flash card to students to let them know if they were right or wrong.
Students are not required in this activity to raise their hands before they say anything. Also, it is not mandatory for each student - only those who are willing to voice out their guesses can do that. Others are free to remain silent.
One girl whose name is Mandy was not active in this during the first two months of the semester, which means she always remained silent. However, during the third month, she became quite active, and even more active during the fourth month.
The teacher is writing in her diary:
“Mandy’s guesses are more and more frequent these days…”
Question:
I wonder if the word “guesses” is a good choice here. What the teacher wants to put down in her diary is not just the fact of there being guesses on the part of Mandy, but the fact that Mandy is now shouting them out (after all, guesses can pop up and still stay in Mandy's mind, that is, not voiced by her yet still evident somehow – for example, in her facial expressions).
However, using the words “responses” or “answers” don’t seem to be a good choice either because they don’t convey the guesswork connotation.
So, what word (or a phrase) would you use here?