How often is your gut instinct right?

Re:How often is your gut instinct right? by mdakin on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @09:43AM (#11253)

Back when I was in school I noticed a pattern emerge while taking tests over freshman year: If I changed a test answer a statistically HUGE amount of the time I changed it from the correct answer to an incorrect one. After noticing this pattern I stopped second guessing myself!

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Re:How often is your gut instinct right? by nostrademons on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @12:38PM (#11326)

I actually noticed the opposite pattern: about 95% of the time, the double-check caught careless mistakes and I ended up with a higher score for it. Perhaps it was because of my typical test-taking strategy: I'd race through the questions and answer every one immediately, then I'd go back and double-check all the steps to make sure I hadn't done anything silly.

I did notice that my score tended to decrease if I triple- or quadruple-checked my answers, though.

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Re:How often is your gut instinct right? by mdakin on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @02:45PM (#11421)

I guess the real key is to "know thyself" well enough to know one's optimal strategy!

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Re:How often is your gut instinct right? by zaidf on Tuesday April 10, 2007 @10:47AM (#11280)

Last semester I had a professor who banned changing answers once you fill it in on the scantron. That means no erasers. He gave a similar line of reasoning as your experience.

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