The Trick-Question Section of the Student Aptitude for Withstanding Testing Anxiety Admission Test

You are about to begin the last section of the Student Aptitude for Withstanding Testing Anxiety Admission Test (SAWTAAT). Carefully read each question and fill in your answer on the provided answer sheet. Good luck!

1. John has test-taking anxiety. Thus, John feels that trick questions on standardized tests are ____.

1. Necessary
2. Vexing
3. Forgromulent
4. A word we made up just to trick John

2. Ana is taking a standardized test that penalizes one point for each incorrect answer. If each question has 4 choices, how many should she eliminate before guessing?

1. 0
2. 1
3. Whatever the prep book says
4. 4, none of the answer choices are right

3. Did you know that on the SAWTAAT you can bubble in multiple answer choices per question?

1. Now I do.
2. Yes, because I’m taking this test to get into business school, where I was told to always say yes to things
3. No, because I’m taking this test to get into business school, where I was told to never give away information for free
4. No response because I’m taking this test to get into law school, where I was told to never give a definitive answer

4. Which of the following describes your answers to Questions 1-3?

1. I marked them all as C, which can’t be right, so now I’m going back to change one of them
2. I marked them all C, but I’m not going back because those are exactly the kind of mind games these tests do
3. I marked only two of them as C, but that would make this one the third C in a row, so now I’m going back to change one of them
4. All of the above

5. Using your answers to Questions 1 and 4, which of the following would John probably be right now?

1. Slightly vexed
2. Vexed as hell
3. Forgromulent as hell
4. All of the above

7. If each question has exactly one correct answer and three incorrect answers, which answer choice must be correct?

1. This one
2. All of the above
3. All of the above but from here
4. All of the above but from here

8. Use the below to select the answer choice indicating which answer-choice features are psychologically unfair for a standardized test.

I       Including “all of the above” on every question
II     Including “none of the above” on every question
III    That bullshit where you pick a subset of three statements

1. I
2. II and III
3. I, II, and III
4. None of the above

9. What if that bullshit makes you pick a subset of four statements?

I         If there are four statements, then it’s okay
II       Roman numerals should be banned from all standardized tests
III     Especially Roman numerals that format four as IIII instead of IV
IIII   How is this relevant for whether I’m a good fit for college/grad school/law school/med school/business “school”?

1. II and IIII
2. I and III
3. I and III but from Question 8
4. None of the above

10. Our apologies, assessing four statements was too many. We’ll play fair and list only two statements this time. Which of the following expressions is equal to 7?

I     3 + 4
II   4 + 3

1. I but not II
2. II but not I
3. What’s the point of this?

11. True or false: According to the bar graph at the beginning of this section, the SAWTAAT is conscientious of CO2 emissions and has reformatted its tests to save as much paper as possible.

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12. True or false: I realized several questions back that the SAWTAAT was testing my observational skills by deliberately skipping one of the numbers to mess up my answer sheet.

14. True or false: I learn from my mistakes.

15. True or false: Based on the following passage, John gets anxious when a random misprint means he can’t read the entire

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16. Gauging your confidence from your answers so far, which of the following would you most prefer?

1. I’d like to review my answers with absolutely no intention of changing them
2. I’d like to act now and get 4 test retakes for the price of 2
3. I’d like to act now and get 5 test retakes for the price of 3 (plus shipping and handling)
4. I’d like to act now and ask for a calculator to figure out which of those is a better deal

17. John tries using information from other questions to figure out answers he’s unsure of. Thus, John feels that trick questions in standardized tests are ____.

1. Necessary
2. Necessary
3. Necessary
4. A word we’re changing the meaning of but don’t tell John

18. Okay, we’re done trying to trick you, so we’ll make this last one easy. Which answer choice did you select for Question 19?

1. A
2. B
3. D
4. None of the above

That concludes the test! You’ll get your results in 4-6 weeks after you’ve paid hundreds of dollars to send scores you’ll be unhappy with.