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bolido_sentimental  1yr ago (text post)   3347 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 25, 2022

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Is there such a thing as taking tests fast or slow, separate from actual score? Throughout my academic career I finished every test I ever took freakishly fast, like everyone else is working and I'm sitting there for half an hour. This did not correlate with how in or others did on the test, if I tried to go back and change answers or edit I was as likely to score lower as higher. Friends who scored the same as me, consistently, took more time to finish.

Normally test taking speed correlates with intelligence, but it always felt like something else there.

I had a few of those. Answers well-memorized, methods well-drilled, and most importantly the test was actually on the topics of the course - something that was frequently not the case at my university. Take one look at the test, write down all the answers in half an hour, then sit there for an hour or ask to be permitted to leave while all my peers are still working away at their desks. Not something that happened to me with math tests, but frequently with CS tests.

Now, I am not a clever man. See https://www.buttersafe.com/2008/10/23/the-detour/. And I think it is in fact a small but significant degree of dumbness that allows me to just blow off the prospects of re-visiting my answers. Or maybe high time preference? Maybe I really don't want to waste an hour even if it might cost me some infinitesimal career advantage? In any case, I don't think it's necessarily intelligence.

I'm fairly certain it's not intelligence, through high school and law school friends who got the same scores consistently took longer.

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