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Comment by bawolff | Hacker News Reader

I would argue that any test which is a race against the clock is a bad test. Whatever you are trying to test you are almost certainly not measuring (i suppose reality doesn't care and people still have to deal with bad tests).

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Basically every test has a time limit in school. No one save a small number of learning disabled kids struggles to finish in time. If it takes you the whole time you don't know it!

The fact that nearly every test has a time limit isn't proof that time limits are useful. Furthermore the majority of tests taken in school are completely forgotten even a year later, meaning that students didn't "know" the information in the first place, they were just able to regurgitate it for a useless exercise in stress and make-work.

Tests are useful as spaced repetition, and spaced repetition is good for remembering. That students may not remember a specific test a year later doesn't seem relevant. Time limits are necessary because everything is time limited, even when applying this knowledge in a job, and if you're struggling to finish in time, then that indicates areas that need work.

Most (tech) jobs put a premium on being right over being fast. Nobody cares if you get the wrong answer quickly. Person who takes longer but gets a better answer will usually do better in their career.

Learning you're getting the wrong answer quickly is a big part of why we test.

Taking longer can help your career, but there's a limit. Test times were always very generous for people ahead of the curve, short for people below, and just about right for everyone else, because that's how they're designed.

Most tests i've taken are not structured that way. Most of the time you need a multipart question to get significant benefit of realizing you are wrong fast. In a world of multiple choice tests, that is pretty rare.

Ancedotal, but when i was in school i remember people top of the class were often last to finish their test (i guess because they double checked things more).

An aside. I think people care about speed. An MIT degree finished in four years is more impressive than one finished in 8

Well that's the point though isn't it? A good test might technically have a time limit, but time won't be the limiting factor for most people, so nobody will think extra time is some "unfair" advantage.

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