What does this indicate?
Usually, when I think I did really well on something, I end up getting not such a high score that I expect, but whenever I think I did really bad on something, my score usually ends up being not as bad.
This isn’t always true, of course. And nowadays, I have been noticing that the latter is more common for me (underestimating my score). This year I thought I failed or barely passed the APUSH midterm, but got an 80…
When I took algebra, I could never tell if I did well or not. I could think I got a B and get a low F. In most other subjects I could probably tell within 5 points what my score would be. Of course that was a bajillion years ago.
I know what you mean. I think that - at least on tests - it has to do with misplaced optimism in your guessing ability, and misplaced pessimism in the actual facts you know. So when you guess most of a test, you feel confident that you’re a great guesser, while when you know the facts, there’s lingering uncertainty that you might have remembered them wrong, even if you know it perfectly well.
It could also be confirmation bias. You remember all the times you were completely wrong, but block out the times when you thought you failed and proceeded to fail, or felt great about it and got an A.
Either that, or you’re just really bad at self-assessing. 