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Comment by TheCleric | Hacker News Reader

I don’t know if it was just chance, but nearly every question’s correct answer was the first option. So I’d shuffle the order of the answers around if you’re not already.

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It seems to be consistent. The correct answer was the first for all but the last question for me.

Ditto.

I'm not sure if that was meant to be a delibrate trap, I noticed about ten in, and by the 20th question I was thinking this is just silly .. and then almost gave the wrong answer on the 26th question.

The difference between HN coders and 5th graders is that we get paid to figure out the shortcuts fast, even if 1/26 times something breaks.

That was at the core of me (CTO) discussing recruiting tests with HR - developers will always jump to the meta level of the test, try to find out what the test is about, then answer accordingly. These "personality" tests annoyed engineering candidates and the results where doctored by the candidates, but HR wouldn't give up.

Hmmm - I coded aircraft control, exploration geophysics, and computational algebra systems. I do love a shortcut but triple checking to avoid physical crashes, expensive mistakes and other math people laughing is first nature over speed.

#6 on why I'm an atypical HN coder.

That's how I got the 26th question wrong. I stopped paying attention and just checked the first box even though I had a feeling it would be a trick

Same here, which allowed me to answer some questions I don't know, not being from the USA (imperial units?). I guess that's proper 5th grade thinking.

I stopped after five after seeing this pattern as I assumed this is some kind of experiment.

I got the impression it was intentional. A bit tongue in cheek.

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