I never thought I'd MISS exams

[lutonianbill]

But the BBC have a nice little test here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7773974.stmRead more... )

Comments

[janetmiles]

I got all of them right except the last number sequence question. I needed pencil and paper to do the code (really cipher) questions and the third number sequence. Overall, it was fun, but I can certainly imagine being terrified of it if I were 10 years old and the rest of my life depended on my performance.

[lutonianbill]

I did the numerical code section by starting with the assumption that there was only one possible correct answer - usually a safe bet in properly constructed tests, but something people often forget to factor in as you can't do that in real life. I noticed two words ended in ST and two codes ended in 45, so thought they might be related. If ST = 45 then STEEL should start 45 - there was only option that started that way, and all the letters from LEST matched if it was 1345. That left MAST as the other word for 6245 and again there was only one option that needed checking. It worked, I moved on and didn't even check whether M was consistent on the original data, or what the missing code was. I would have gone back to check in my remaining spare time under the original exam conditions though

[wcg]

I got 12 of 15.

What I missed:

The numerical codes (TEAM MALE MAST LEST
6245 5326 1345) I looked at it for a while, made a WAG, and went on. With only 10 minutes I didn't want to waste the time required to break the code and I didn't have a pencil and paper handy. So I missed those two.

The last number sequence (16, 17, 18, 18, 20, 19, ____
21 23 22 20 )
I picked 21. The scoring program says it's 20. I don't grasp the logic there, but I'm sure it must exist. Reading the answer page, it says there that the correct answer is 22, which at least makes some sense if you assume that the sequence is actually two interleaved sequences.

I finished with 2 minutes and 47 seconds left.

Any idea what a score of 12 would have meant in terms of pass/fail?

[lutonianbill]

I was tempted to reach for pen and paper when I saw the codes too, but instead just used the "there is only one correct answer" assumption and looked for patterns I could easily check. I wanted to find two words that probably had codes - "MALE and MAST" made me look for numbers that started with the same two digits, but there weren't two with the same starting numbers. Finding two ending in ST (MAST and LEST) made me look for codes ending with the same two digits and I found 6245 and 1345, checked if those could make the next two answers work and they did. If they hadn't I'd probably have checked LE against starting and ending digit pairs, but once I'd got an answer that worked I left it and moved on - can always go back and check if you have time

[hitchhiker]

decent test. i got 15/15 with 6:12mins left, but the questions made me think.

[lutonianbill]

For some reason, I did think YOU might be the most likely person on my friend's list to get full marks. Probably because of your Scrabble abilities: I do consider skill at that to be a sign of flexible thinking under pressure. I know there's more number questions in the test than word questions, but the easiest number questions seem easier than the easiest word ones. But I'm biased - I can hold words in my head far easier than numbers, and although this test didn't stretch me enough to reach for pen and paper, multiple 3-digit numbers would have done whereas 4-letter words didn't.

[lutonianbill]

Thanks to all of you that commented - and if you didn't comment because you scored low, please ignore that and tell me what you think anyway. I'm not especially interested in your individual scores, just what you feel about the test. A test like this (although rather longer - I think the one I sat was an hour rather than 10 minutes) changed my life. Feel free to point me at examples of what YOU went through, I suspect there's many knowledge-based tests rather than the future-ability-test this was supposed to be.