Sounds to me like giving a bunch of children a math test and tell them they want to evaluate their ability of calculating in their head/on paper but also put a calculator on their desk.
And then call them out for cheating when they use it.
Only after sharing my Chain Of Thought would they believe I didnt cheat.
Not all problems can be solved only in one way.
Most of learning is pattern matching.
If you give a kid a dice. and tell it to figure out the number that will be hidden underneath, he can try to memorize all combinations, or he could figure out that every time the hidden value is the one that sums 7 with the one at the top.
If you're seeing a 6, there's a 1 hidden. etc
most people don't see these patterns until told imho. But others can just see them as they unfold