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In my 2nd year at university, I took a mandatory course called “Principles of Programming Languages” in which I was taught functional programming languages (like Lisp and ML). As part of this course, the professor gave us an impossible midterm. It was all multiple choice questions, but there were far more questions than could be completed in the 1 hour time limit.
The students didn’t know this at the time. The class average for the test was abysmal. Some of the students who usually got top grades received poor grades on that test. I did surprisingly well.
After the test was graded, the professor explained that he purposefully added a lot of questions for the allotted time frame. He wanted us to learn better test-taking strategies, which includes not getting stuck for too long on a question that you aren’t sure of. The class groaned and complained, of course. We weren’t supposed to be tested on our ability to take a test. We were supposed to be tested on our knowledge of Lisp and ML.
To be honest, I don’t remember if the professor ended up adjusting the marks, but I did learn something unexpected.
I did well on the test because I knew the optimal strategy for taking a multiple choice exam - don’t get stuck wasting your time on a question you are unsure of. When stuck on a question, I answer with my best guess, make a note of the question number, and move on. I come back to these questions at the end of the test, if I have time.
Prior to that particular test, I hadn’t really thought about this strategy. It was just something that made sense to me, something I did by default. My professor and his impossible test made me realize that I had a strategy for multiple choice tests and it was one that works well!
Today, I know I learned a number of things from that experience including:
- The importance of having a plan before setting out to complete a task, especially more complex ones - knowing the best strategy to take for a multiple choice can result in an improved grade.
- Don’t lose sight of the big picture - it’s not as important to work out the one question that I’m stuck on, as it is to complete the test successfully.
- The importance of self-awareness/self-reflection - I now know how my approach to a multiple choice exam type situation and can mindfully choose to continue with my strategy.
15+ years later...
I run into a similar situation in the work place. Instead of a multiple choice test, we had a number automated tests to run and only a short period of time in which to complete all test runs.
We were preparing for a major upgrade and we were not always very disciplined with updating our automated tests. So, we needed to run them prior to the upgrade to see if any fail, so we could note that any tests which fail prior to the upgrade are likely not failures that are caused by the upgrade.
There were 3 possible reasons for a test to fail:
- We forgot to update the test when we updated a feature.
- A timing issue - unfortunately some tests would fail due to a timing issue and would usually pass if run again.
- A feature is genuinely broken, even prior to the upgrade.
(If you’re cringing at how broken/immature our development and testing processes are - I hear you, but stay with me. That’s not the point of this particular story...)
Our junior developer had one day to run all the tests and to determine which of the 3 reasons each failing test fell under. If the test failed because we forgot to update it, then we could quickly update the test. If the test failed due to a timing issue, then we would need to run the test again. If the test failed due to a genuinely broken feature, then we would need to make a note of it.
The problem was that with each failing test, the junior developer had to troubleshoot to determine which of the 3 types of failures he had in order to take appropriate actions. When I checked in with him a little past halfway through the work day to see how he was progressing, he had completed less than half of the tests. Rather than letting me know he was behind schedule, he brought to my attention one of the failing test, presumably the one he was currently looking at to get my help with diagnosing it.
It seemed to me that he had gotten stuck in the multiple choice test trap and was not going to be able to complete all the tests before the end of the day. I asked him to focus on running all of the tests at least once first. The testing framework was such that each failure would have some information as to why the test had failed. In a pinch, senior developers can usually discern from these logs which of the 3 reasons caused the test to fail.
Having been given an important task, and being eager to learn and to work, our junior developer dove right into the task without first planning - figuring out what his strategy would be.
In our professional and personal lives...
Many of us have more tasks than there are hours in the day. While the multiple choice test situation is not a perfect analogy for everything in life, and I’m not suggesting that you can skip the unsure or difficult parts of life and come back to it later, I still think it’s important to be self-aware (to know what your defaults are and whether or not they need improvement),, to not lose sight of the big picture, and often, it’s helpful to have a plan.
Turns out... the ability to plan, to be able to see the big picture, and to be self-aware are a kind of professional super power.
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