How can I tell if choke is on or off on my snow blower?

Ok before u laugh, I am a 22 yo girl . I have a troy bilt 2410 2 stage and according to the instructions you turn it clockwise for starting & vice versa once it starts. However, I saw on a message board that someone was having it serviced and was told that the manual had it wrong that it was counter to start. The picture is a curve on the left & shows it very narrow at the top and wide at the bottom. I bought it 2 yrs ago and without reading the instructions I just figured narrow meant closed and wide meant open, so I have been doing what the service shop said and not the manual. This season I tried the opposite (manual directions) and it never starts. So how do I know what's right? Let me describe it, when it's turned counterclockwise to start, it starts right up, then when turning clockwise to run, it does make ALOT more noise and throws the snows very far far and feels like it has some oomph. If I do it the other way, it doesn't want to start for me and while it doesn't make nearly as much noise, the snow isn't thrown very far and it seems wimpy. So which way does it sound like it's running right?