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We had a Chemistry teacher who tried a similar sort of thing on us when I was about 17.

"OK class, today's lesson is going to be a dictation, get your books out and start taking this down"

I can't remember the exact content but effectively he started off with some familiar organic chemistry and then veered off to stuff that was pretty obviously wrong.

I'm proud to say that I'm the one that said "Eh ... that doesn't seem like a valid equation ... ?"

"Good! Never just copy this stuff down without engaging your brain!"

(Or at least that's the way it goes in my memory, 17 was a long old time ago!)

I was not a great student but at one point in college I realized that I wasn't listening while taking notes. I was just mindlessly copying everything exactly as was written on the white board missing out on what my teachers said.

I stopped taking notes at this point and started paying attention instead. My grades improved. This might not work for everyone but something to try if you struggle retaining lecture content even as you take a bunch of notes.

yes, ive had similar experiences, and thinking back on it, why take notes when you can just record the lecture and play it back later.... better to engage in the lecture, since thats why we are there in the first place!

Funny, for me it's the opposite. Can't remember it if I don't write it down. I don't have to read it afterwards, I just remember what it was by remembering writing it.

In a physics or maths class that seems impossible unless the prof is teaching directly from distributed notes or the text book. Some of the better classes I had were those where the prof just gave out their notes and we could focus on what was said rather than writing it out, in that case if you zone out it's your fault.

Actually I was a Math major the biggest thing for me is 1. notes can be very cryptic after the class without the verbal context. A lot of course also have that advantage where the teacher would provide notes afterwards so yeah focusing in on what was said was the highest value.

It was my fault that I zoned out, that's why I had to find a way to avoid it.

I've found that taking notes in cursive helps my listening comprehension, for whatever it's worth. But it makes it harder to use my notes as a reference later.

We had a similar one of those in school. The first question of the test was 'read all questions before you start.' Then it had stuff like poke holes in the paper, draw things, random stuff, the very last question though was,

'Now that you've read all the questions, just write your name in the top corner and turn your paper over.'

Yeah...a lot of my classmates ended up with holes and scribbles on their tests...

I had one of those in fourth or fifth grade. It had items like "squawk like a chicken", making it obvious to everyone whether or not you read the directions.

It’s pretty ambiguous, though. In tests you usually complete all questions. Why should you in this instance only complete the first and the last task?

The teacher also told us specifically to read everything before also doing anything.

1.) The complete set of instructions was inconsistent and mutually exclusive. The two questions required mutually exclusive actions. Why pick last?

2.) That is standard boilerplate typically said due to people not reading whole questions. And it is not useful advice in general.

  When you are doing a safety check list, you don't skip and do whatever part of the checklist you feel comfortable doing. 
  You do it from top to bottom. 

  Multiple people have died in accidents because they focused on small issue ignoring the larger problem.

  So when it's time to check safety in scuba diving, you should better follow the instruction instead of doing whatever you want. 
  Example. There is no point to worry about "Is your mask clean?" when you are going to run out of oxygen and drown.

If you are still unsure of the why, then you have had a fortunate life. There are many times you will get a set of "instructions" where somewhere something is wrong or incomplete, but you won't know that until you've worked your way through them. Ikea comes to mind. It is often very helpful to read through all of the steps involved first to make sure you actually have all of the parts/pieces you need and to make sure they make sense before starting. So I say again, that if you've never run into one of these situations, then you've been lucky.

I’m not questioning that you should read all the questions, I’m saying it’s ambiguous what you should do if you’re given the following task list:

    1) read all tasks
    2) do x
    3) do y
    4) do z
    5) now that you have read all tasks, just write your name and do nothing

I don’t understand why I should not do x,y,z. Task 1 is telling me to read all tasks, not to execute any. Why should one, when reading 5), decide to execute that particular one, but not the other ones?

To me, the correct procedure would be to read all tasks (task 1), then continue executing task 2), etc.

I was one of the kids with holes in my paper. It taught me an immediate and memorable lesson. Attention to detail.

Those who followed first sentence instruction did correctly one question. And ignored all the others in test that was supposed to be graded on completeness.

He also claimed the goal was to gauge their knowledge. Again, that was lie. And those who scribbled were literally trying to fulfill stated goal of test.

> It will be graded on completeness, not correctness. You are not expected to know all the answers. I'm just interested in gauging what you know.

In overwhelming majority of situations, of you sabotage goal of event due to following likely faulty mutually conflicting instructions, you will be blamed for it.

Given a set of mutually conflicting directives, one must exercise discretion to prioritize. I felt (at the time and reflecting on the experience now) that it was clear which held the higher priority.

To me, ignoring that one and answering questions gives more sense.

According to instructions, the test was judged on completeness. The instructor expected the students to pick set of instructions that make test less complete.

In this variant, answering majority of questions and leaving that one missed is rational behavior.

The test was graded on completeness no doubt. Grade = completeness == 0 ? Pass : Fail.

> Make sure you read and follow all instructions.

I'd be worried about someone who receives that instruction, receives an anomalous instruction on the test, and decides to ignore the anomalous instruction.

Other versions of this test include the last question being "Don't answer any questions". The habit the teacher was trying to impart was "read the whole paper" first before answering any questions -- particularly if there are multiple choice questions.

This is an irrational party(professor) trick that wastes everyone's time.

An argument could be made for "read the (short) instructions at the start". An argument cannot be made for this. There is often very little value to skimming the entire question set before the exam.

I don't know about you, but for my tests on a curve where I might not be able to answer all the questions, doing the quick skim to answer the low hanging fruit before getting to the harder problems is a good way to make sure you don't run out of time and lose out.

Also, content of later questions can be useful earlier, and getting some background brain cells working on the hard stuff while you churn through the easy stuff could be worthwhile.

It's a good lesson, but it's a lesson about taking tests not about the material. I can see arguments for and against including that in any given class.

>content of later questions can be useful earlier

In some tests I have seen future questions answer previous ones. For a contrived example:

"Q1: What color was the bookshelf? A. Red B. Green C. Blue"

"Q2: What sentimental item did John take from the red bookshelf?"

I was never sure if it was on purpose to reinforce reading all questions before answering or if it was merely poor test design. Usually it was more subtle than my contrived example but it did bump my scores on some tests up a bit.

I did the same, but if I'm doing that skimming and I know the answer to question 12 is (c), I fill in (c) and keep going. I don't read all the questions, then go back and try and remember which of the questions I knew the answers to off-hand. Instead, I'd do the test in 3 passes.

1. Answer all questions that I know the answer instantly or (for math type tests) can solve within a few seconds. Skip anything not quick. 2. Go back and answer questions that I know I can solve. These usually take a minute or two (since the easy ones should already be done). If there happens to be a question I know I can solve but also know will take "too much time," skip it. 3. If there's time left, work through any remaining questions (hopefully there aren't that many), making a best effort to prioritize the ones I'm more confident that I can solve in the time remaining.

Why would you not answer questions you know straight away? That wastes time.

It's been a very long time since I had to do any tests, but back in my school days, with multiple-choice tests, I evolved a method of quickly answering everything I was confident to know 100% throughout the entire test in a first pass, reserving the rest for subsequent increasingly slower passes.

What tended to occur was the earlier fast passes at the very least warmed up the cache upstairs, and some previously unclear questions became obvious. Then for the remaining questions, they often had dependencies with other questions and their answers, which I could use to deduce probably correct answers.

This was obscenely effective. To the extent that I would ace tests in classes I barely attended and never turned in homework for, in some cases culminating in teachers publicly accusing me of cheating on the exams. Though some of that was also due to switching from private to public school where I had already learned the material in the previous years.

I once used this method and spent the last ten minutes of a test just guess-and-checking the solutions to a question I didn't remember the formula for. Of course, it was the last one I checked. (I wasn't confident enough to early return).

I used the same method and can confirm it was very effective for me as well.

An added bonus is reduced stress about time limits. After the first pass you have a big chunk (if not most) of the test done in little time - this feels good and also leaves you with a clearer idea of how much work and time is left.

I agree. More over, half of these have genuinly mutually exclusive instructions.

And from those mutually exclusive requirements you are supposed to pick the "least likely one" else you are wrong. It is good example how manipulation works however. You put people into unsolvable situation and then blame them.

One of my middle school teachers gave that sheet out to the class. I was that one kid that took it seriously, but had no prior-example knowledge to even bother reading ahead.

The test with the bail-out at the start sounds logically fine. The test I was given was just a cruel trick from a trusted source of tests / knowledge provision.