<p>I have also seen something similar in high school course requirements - “required” vs “recommended”. Take foreign language as an example, I have seen 4 cases: </p>
<p>Case 1) Units Required = 3; Unit Recommended = none;
Case 2) Units Required = none; Units Recommended = 3;
Case 3) Units Required = none; Units Recommended = 3+;
Case 4) Units Required = 3; Units Recommended = 4.</p>
<p>Applying the same theory that “recommended” ~= “required”, the results are:</p>
<ul>
<li>Case 2 = Case 1</li>
<li>Case 3 = Case 4, because “3+” means at least 3 units and you can only add one more unit on top of 3 at maximum.</li>
<li>When Case 3 = Case 4, both Case 3 and Case 4 really require the number of units = 4.</li>
</ul>
<p>Agree? Or “required” vs “recommended” in high school course requirements is different from that in standardized test requirements?</p>