<p>Post in this thread if you hate this excuse for unintelligent people.</p>
<p>Whenever some moron says this after failing their 4th straight test in like on-level psychology, I just want to rip their kneecap off and grill it with my pure rage.</p>
<p>What the F does being a bad test-taker mean? It's such a common excuse, yet there's no real definition of what it is? Is it people that are physically unable to get their brain to tell their hand to bubble the right answer?</p>
<p>
Post in this thread if you mildly disdain condescending people who think they’re more intelligent.</p>
<p>Bad test takers are people that have trouble dealing with test-related anxiety and in some cases may have trouble processing in a tight time limit even though they understand the material as well as, or better than, most others.</p>
<p>It’s certainly an overused excuse, but it’s real for some people.</p>
<p>On the opposite side, there are definitely good test takers. Some people are good at coming up with answers just based on the way the test is written. Some people are good at pulling answers out of their ass that they only marginally know.</p>
<p>High Test Scores do not always mean high intelligence. And vice versa. You can be a human encyclopedia, but if you can not apply that knowledge, are you really that intelligent? Or the other way around, you have terrible memory, but your analytical and system optimization skills, are you dumb? There is that whole computer analogy coming: computers can process massive amounts of data and spit it back out, but artificial intelligence is still in its infancy.</p>
<p>^^ I see it the same way as I see obese people. Yes, it probably is genetics for a small amount of people. But it is definitely not genetics for even 10% of obese people. Yet they all use the genetics excuse…sounds like people unwilling to acknowledge that they’re not that great.</p>
<p>And ^ yeah that’s nice, but let’s face it, if someone can barely handle a high school exam, do you REALLY think that it’s just because they have some esoteric, higher knowledge than the people that did score well.</p>
<p>Hahaha, no. I really hate this other line of thinking the bad test taker crowd uses, saying they really just have a perfect grasp of the underlying concepts, they (for some reason) just cannot answer the questions on a test. Admit it, a lot of people just refuse to accept that they’re unintelligent.</p>
<p>You can be like me, who only remembers certain facts and almost all concepts, but forgets gaps of the relevant facts that aren’t frequently viewed. I’d say I’m a fairly good test-taker, but I can see where these people are coming from, it’s very easy to forget knowledge when timed, example: Right now I could likely flesh out all of the 27 amendments, but on my 160 question AP Gov test I’m expected to complete in 40 minutes, that’s not the case. It’s quite easy to see how knowledge hides itself as stress becomes prominent. Bad test-taker or good test-taker, it happens on occasion, the difference is how often.</p>
<p>LOL I love that, you automatically think I am obese because of my screen name… <em>sigh</em> I played Linebacker this last season, I am 6’0" 220 lb and I do not tolerate anyone calling me obese.</p>
<p>edit: saw that ninja edit…</p>
<p>^ not sure if you’re being sarcastic or not, but I used the obese thing as a response to the guy above you. You posted while I was composing my post, I didn’t even see your name.</p>
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You chose to name yourself davidTHEFAT. What did you expect? </p>
<p>Also, 220lbs is a lot, so you’re at least davidthebig.</p>
<p>I do experience test-taking anxiety, and am considerably affected by the pressure of timed-tests, yet still do well enough on most tests. I would say that probably the worst test takers (the ones for who saying they are a “bad test-taker” is the most valid, who experience these things to the extremes) probably aren’t the lowest scorers. (Probably the lowest scorers are the least intelligent people).</p>
<p>I don’t know how well being a bad test-taker can explain low scores. I think what it can better explain is scores significantly below a person’s potential.</p>
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</p>
<p>You’re trivializing a very deep question about the nature of existence. For shame.</p>
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Ah, but how could I have known that an internet poster named Dusterbug would be Plato come again?! Forgive me!</p>
<p>Wait I think we mean the nature of consciousness.</p>
<p>One cannot think if one does not exist</p>
<p>TCBH, are you Descartes?</p>
<p>Actually, some people ARE bad test takers. You can be a great student who participates in class a lot, talks a lot and be really enthusiastic about class work, but when it comes to tests… you’re also the person who freezes up, gets anxious, and just overthink everything. My friend’s sister got into a lot of the UC’s but still scores Basic on the CST’s. </p>
<p>It’s like people who score really high on ACADEMIC tests and exams but when placed in a room to give a speech or interact with a high amount of different people, they don’t know what to do. There’s no formula as to how to connect and network with people, it’s different for everyone.</p>
<p>Generalizing is what it is, it’s too general. Some people fit the part, some fit part of it, and some fit none of it.</p>
<p>Honestly, to me, a test is a test. You can’t determine what a person is worth when it comes to some academic test. Not everyone has the same mindset as you.</p>
<p>Valedictorian at my school has a 1660 SAT. I wouldn’t say hes unintelligent… at all.</p>
<p>You can’t determine someone’s intelligence solely by how well they take a test. I used to experience extreme anxiety when it came to taking timed test. I would get very nervous, very apprehensive, and even struggled during the test. I struggled not because I was incapable of doing well on the test or that didn’t understand the material, but it was because my anxiety really took a toll on me when it came to taking timed test. For the most part, I am still the last person to finish my tests, but there hasn’t been ONE test this semester where I have gotten lower than an 85%. I know several students who are very intelligent. They do well on their daily assignment, classwork, and projects, they understand the material, but they just aren’t as good when it comes to taking test, and because of that, I feel that your comments (DusterBug) are so subjective, rude, ignorant, bias, insensitive, and even somewhat arrrogant. Grow up!</p>
<p>Hahaha it sure is strawman in here. I completely understand that there is a small amount of people that legitimately have anxiety problems that hurt their performance on tests. What I’m talking about the mentally dull people that simply excuse themselves by using the ‘bad test taker’ excuse when they continually get terrible grades.
And to all the people saying that someone is intelligent because they can do classwork-LOL. Being able to do math problems when you have solved problems in front of you != being a genius. Sorry if it offends your denial defense mechanism.
But anyway, if someone really is smart, they WILL score well on a test, unless they have a major anxiety disorder.</p>
<p>Are you ■■■■■■■■?</p>
<p>This is such an offensive first post that I just can’t believe there are people out there who actually think like that.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, when I was younger, I was a “bad test-taker”/“bad reader”/“bad student”. My teacher gave me F’s and made my parents test me for all sort of learning disabilities… Turned out that I was just really, really slow and that I had normal intelligence and actually read on a fourth grade level in the first grade. Two years later I scored in the genius level on IQ. The point is: I was really, really, really horrible at taking tests when school began even though I clearly could do all of the work. I was just really, really slow. It seemed to my teacher that I was extremely unintelligent, so the slowness factor was just an “excuse”, but it wasn’t really. I was just slow. So it made me look dumb.</p>
<p>Some people are bad test-takers so it makes them look dumb, but they aren’t necessarily. Appearance isn’t always reality.</p>