Speed vs. accuracy

All right. So I have this job interview. Well actually, before I get the interview I have this test. No problem, I am good with tests and this one is measuring things I actually use on the job.

So it’s 30 questions of the ilk of “which is the misspelled word” and inserting the grammatically proper word in the space (is it “lying” or is it “laying” kind of thing) and it’s on the computer. It’s timed. Two minutes.

So I get the right answer in one second, hit Enter, and…the computer chugs along for about 10 seconds, then I get the next question. Get the answer in about 1 second, hit enter, chug chug chug. Meanwhile the clock is ticking away.

I got through about 20 of the questions. I got pretty frustrated but I thought, well, this is their computer, their test. It’s not like they have singled me out for a particularly slow computer, and maybe the working conditions involved this very kind of slow computer. Maybe the actual test is to see whether you lose it as you see your score dropping because of the glacial pace of the damned computer?

But then I got all meta. Of course it’s good to be fast, but it’s better to be right. As far as I can recall, almost every test I’ve ever taken was timed. Some of them were timed so that it was really hard to get to all the questions, but…why is that important? Why is it a factor in intelligence tests? In verbal things I operate really fast because that’s how I prefer to do it, but in math I can usually get the right answer but it takes longer.

I did say something to the tester afterward. She said, “Oh, nobody gets through all the questions.” On that computer? No, they wouldn’t. You couldn’t even click through all the questions without answering them on that computer, so what was the point? Then she said, “We’re actually looking for accuracy.” Great, then why have a timed test? Particularly such a short-timed test.

I can see businesses using a timed test because they want employees who get their work done fast and accurately. In academic and intelligence tests I don’t understand the purpose.

Something I have heard that those who got every detail right were the ones who got man to walk on the moon, those who were able to think fast got the crew of Apollo 13 back home alive.

the test could be to find a person in category 1 or 2

Having to do something under the pressure of time, for some people, increases the number of errors, just because the time factor makes them nervous. Although, since they didn’t give you a non-timed test of similar types of questions to compare error rates, I’m not sure if that’s what they were getting at-- or maybe they think they don’t need a baseline, which isn’t very smart of them.

But you might be right. It might be a strike against you if the first thing you say is “I didn’t do my best because the computer was so slow.” They don’t want people who are always making excuses; they want people who work around problems.

Wait till you have a minor fender bender, and your insurance company says you can insulate yourself from a rate hike if you go to an online driving school. The test is moronically simple, even if you don’t even read the online manual. But after answering question one and you go on to question two, and answer that, you get a message sayng you answered too fast, and you have to wait like ten or fifteen minutes after each question and “review the subject material”…

Of course, one quickly figures out that the only earthly reason to be doing this BS in the first place is to enable some private contractor to get a sweetheart deal from traffic court ($40 fee to take the course), in exchange for punishing you by forcing you to waste a couple of hours of your life. Constitutionally, the courts cannot inflict cruel and unusual punishment on you, but they can compel you to endure atrocities at the hands of private sector subcontractors. I believe it is called “rendering”.

I suspect it’s mainly because HR need to fit their interviews and tests into a specific time frame.

And perhaps their internet connection was terrible - I take it this was online? Some small companies in big cities have horrendous lags when trying to do something complicated like send an email, because they’re spreading their bandwidth too wide and they don’t get a good signal to begin with.