four types of tests

[vh]

1. the standardized
difficulty: low
time: high
description: this test is ridiculously easy, and you usually finish every problem in a fraction of the time given. this test is rarely given due to its uselessness in testing ability. obviously, that's why it's called "the standardized", cause that's the only situation in which you should encounter these. requiring nothing by mental stamina, these tests are mostly an exercise in who has the best error-checking skills. college admissions is largely dependent on these.

2. the breeze
difficulty: low
time: low
description: an easy test, and you don't have too much time to overthink it. this test doesn't require much ability, and after you're done, you feel good about yourself. you knew everything, you wrote down all the right things, and it didn't even take more than half an hour to finish. in fact, you wouldn't mind doing these all day, one after another. usually given in easy high school classes and is called a quiz.

3. the glacier
difficulty: high
time: high
description: you usually need to make several passes through the test because you didn't know how to do half the problems the first time around. depending on the test maker, expect question types which you've never encountered and may actually require, *gasp*, creative thinking! but it's ok, because you still have 3 hours to go. even if you don't know some of the material, you can logic it out with all that time. requires mental stamina and a moderate amount of capability. typical final exam material.

4. the nuke from orbit
difficulty: high
time: low
description: when the teacher decides your grades should be, well, nuked from orbit. if you don't immediately know the answer to each problem as you lay your eyes on it, you're screwed, because there's no time to logic it out. the only way to do well on these is to practice until you can do problems with your eyes closed while skydiving naked without a parachute. after you finish the exam, you can amuse yourself by the expressions on your peers' faces

--

i don't know why i just wrote this.

[Darvince]

my spanish test today is a nuke from orbit

[codefantastic]

Supernova:
Surprise Test
Difficulty: wtf?! when did we learn this?
Time: 30 Minutes

[vh]

i've had exactly one test where i felt i was being tested on something i was not expecting, and had the feeling "when did we learn this"

most of the time when people say that, i think it's because they've only bothered to memorize the material without actually understanding it.

for example, if you learn lagrange multipliers with one constraint, and the test maker puts a lagrange multiplier problem with multiple constraints, you should be expected to reason out how to do the problem. sure, you've never learned how to do it, but then again, you've never learned to add exactly the numbers 23849 and 28349 together, yet you should be able to.

[atomic7732]

but with types of problems like that, it's more like being taught how to add and then being told 'multiply these two numbers' and then at the next level up 'what is 8^6?' without ever actually teaching exponents.

like, well you know how to do the cross product, now do it in the seventh dimension.

i would be like 'we never did this?? is this even how you do it?? are there things i must consider and derive a new form of math while trying to take this test?? why does this take so long????? surely there is another way'

[vh]

generalizing cross products is not a well defined problem, so you can't be expected to know how to do it. but lagrange multipliers with multiple constraints is a straight forward extension of a single constraint, and if you understand how that works, it's not a huge stretch