prokopetz:

dirkar:

Why study for exams when you can deduce the answers based on context clues from other questions and then use those answers to provide you with even more context clues for even more questions in an hour-long stress-fueled Professor Layton-esque logic puzzle extravaganza of future-hinging doom.

Believe it or not, if you want to do well in academia, this particular skill set is at least as important as knowing how to study properly.

Acing an exam doesn’t require filling in answers that are, in some abstract sense, “correct”; it requires filling in what whoever authored the exam thinks the correct answers are. Often the two have very little to do with one another!

Working up a mental profile of the exam’s author based on the wording and arrangement of the questions and going “okay, if I was the joker who wrote this thing, what would I expect the correct answer to be?” is a totally legitimate exam-writing skill, and arguably more critical than actually knowing the material.