Article: Children ‘must get unlimited time to do tests’ says government advisor | the Daily Mail

Any thoughts on this? I’m typically one of the first people in the class done with an exam… not that I’m some genius, only that I’m able to decide what I know and don’t know pretty quickly.

On tests of memorization, I’ve always wondered what takes people so long. What mental exercise are they performing to try to pull the answer forward from the nether regions of their brain?

For example:

Who was William Shakespeare (1564-1616)?

a) Playwright
b) Train conductor
c) Bioethicist
d) Computer engineer

Is it possible to spend more than 30 seconds on that question? More than a minute? Is 60 minutes a reasonable amount of time for a test with 60 questions similar to the one above? What about 90 minutes?

What about this calculation problem? How much time should a 12th-grader spend on this problem? Should they pull out their calculator?

If you invest $100 in a savings account that pays 5% interest at the end of each year, what will be the balance at the end of year 3, assuming no money is taken out?

a) $84
b) $100
b) $116
d) $451

I know there are people who read the site here that might know the guidelines used to set time limits. Any insight into that process would be interesting.