Context: I’m always told on big tests that if I run out of time I should bubble all A’s or something because it’s a better chance I get it right than if I sporadically bubble answers. Why isn’t it just a consistent 25% chance?
In: 0
If the test has four questions for which the answers which are 1. A 2. B 3. C 4. D.
By picking C for every answer, you’re guaranteed 25%.
If you pick randomly for each one, there’s one chance in 256 that you’ll pick (A, B, C, D) and get 100%. And there’s one chance in 256 that you’ll pick (B, A, D, C), and get 0%. If you do this a bunch of times, your average score will still be 25%, but you will sometimes do better and sometimes do worse.
The longer the test, the more likely it is that the two strategies will give you very similar scores. So in practice it doesn’t make much of a difference.
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