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0 pointsiyulaev12y ago0 comments

Barely. IIRC it's 0 points if blank, -0.25 if wrong, so if you eliminate 1 choice it's worth it to guess. I'd like to see it be -5 points if wrong, since this is more reflective of the real world. When I entered the industry as an electrical engineer this was a difficult transition for me. In school, you're incentivized to guess and BS. But in the real world, the penalty for being wrong is HUGE.

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wwweston12y ago

> in the real world, the penalty for being wrong is HUGE

In some situations (committing an integrated circuit design to manufacture probably being one), the cost of being wrong is pretty big.

Other situations where there's a tight feedback loop and you can make/propagate changes quickly (say, most web app software development), it's less so.

iyulaevOP12y ago

True. But generally the cost of guessing and doing something wrong is much higher than saying "I don't know" and asking someone else or Googling the result. School, through homeworks and especially exams, trains us to do our best without outside help. I would argue that this behavior is maladaptive to engineering in the real world.

thomaslangston12y ago

In the real world, the penalty for being wrong is dependant on the risks involved, and sometimes you can manage the risks.

Guessing is a good skill. Managing risk is a good skill. Learning how to situationally value guessing vs. knowing is a awesome skill.

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