Hidden Purpose Test: Difference between revisions
→Film
(→Film) |
|||
| (4 intermediate revisions by 2 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
When the heroes know they're being tested, but the purpose of the test isn't what they think it is. Subtrope of [[False Crucible]].
This is commonly done in [[Real Life]] psychological tests, to get round people giving the answers they think the tester wants to see. It's harder to do that if you don't know the true purpose of the test. Unlike [[Secret Test|secret tests]], the hero does know he's being tested, so there's less need to go to elaborate, and unsafe, lengths to fake danger.
Line 9:
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Naruto]]'' loves doing this.
** Hatake Kakashi sets up a test where three fresh ninja recruits have to steal bells from him... which is totally impossible. The day before, he told them to skip breakfast without explaining the exercise, [[Training
** The first stage of the Chuunin Exam is just finding the room for it by seeing through an illusion technique. The final question is given at the end with the condition that once you've heard the question, if you get it wrong you instantly fail and can never take the exam again, or you can quit and try again next year. {{spoiler|There is no question, it's just a test to see if you'll gamble your future on the mission}}.
** During a [[Filler]] episode, its revealed that the dreaded "final question" in the chuunin exam one year was subtly different. In this version, if you get the question wrong, you're still fine but your team mates are stuck as genin forever. {{spoiler|Agreeing to continue means you fail. Apparently, ninja should be willing to gamble with their own futures, but not their teammates' futures.}}
Line 29:
* This trope is the entire foundation of the 2004 movie ''D.E.B.S'', in which a secret test is hidden in the American S.A.T.s which measures the students aptitude for spying. All those who pass the hidden test are given the opportunity (which nobody, it seems, turns down) to become a D.E.B. It is not shown where the boys who pass the test are sent, or why there is a Frenchgirl taking the S.A.T.s.
* In ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'''s Kobayashi Maru test, the hidden purpose was to test how trainees would deal with an [[Unwinnable Training Simulation|unwinnable situation]].
* In ''[[Men in Black (film)|Men in Black]]'', potential recruits are shown taking a marksmanship test, with a mix of both alien and human targets in a street scene. James Edwards ignores the aliens, putting a single shot in the forehead of a little girl, and invokes this trope when ordered to explain his choice, claiming she was the most suspicious target since she was carrying quantum physics textbooks and looked too young to be out by herself at night surrounded by said aliens. The movie leaves it up in the air as to whether Edwards is right or whether it's his other qualities - quick outside-the-box thinking, attention to detail, and willingness to challenge authority, among others - that lead Agent K to select Edwards as {{spoiler|his replacement}}; the novelization (which deviates from the film in some areas) presents his reasoning as correct.
** Another possible one (again, the movie doesn't confirm either way): Earlier, when presented with a multiple-choice test on paper with no flat surface to write on, he very noisily drags a table over to his chair while everyone else stays where they are and struggles with the difficulty of penciling in their answers on the floppy paper test sheets.
** Its also entirely possible that Agent K's exact reasoning was less important to the MIB than the simple fact that he actually stopped to ''try'' reasoning it out instead of reflexively shooting the first alien who looked ugly. Since the primary purpose of the MIB is to be ''immigration control officers'', the last trait they need in job applicants is xenophobia.
== Literature ==
Line 49:
* ''[[Murder, She Wrote]]'' episode "Test of Wills": Jessica Fletcher is called in by a wealthy man to find out which of his heirs is trying to kill him. When he suddenly dies, she tries to discover the murderer. In the end it turns out that {{spoiler|the man only pretended to die, in order to smoke out the killer}}.
* On ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'', an arrogant new warlady wants to replace Xena as Ares' favored human, so he lets the two of them fight it out in a special isolated dimension. Ares says that either of them can just call his name at any time if they need his help. Eventually the other warlady does so, and Ares appears only to reveal that by being the first who had to call for help, she's lost. "[[Exact Words|I said you could]]. I didn't say you should."
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** When Wesley is taking the Starfleet entrance exam his final test is "facing his biggest fear." While he's waiting for the test to start, a fire breaks out in a nearby lab and he can only save one of the techs working there. It turns out that that was the test, his fear was having to make a decision like that. He knew there was going to be a test but he didn't know that the test was happening when it was happening.
** In the episode "Lower Decks", Worf teaches his fellow crew members the Mok'bara, and has an advanced class that you must test into. The test consists of defeating master Worf while blindfolded. Which of course means that the test really consists of removing the blindfold and standing up to Worf. (Worf gets bonus points for straight-facedly claiming that this is an ancient Klingon ritual, when actually he made it up on the spot.)
** In the episode "Thine Own Self", Deanna Troi repeatedly takes—and fails—the bridge officer's test, unable to come up with [[Techno Babble]] fast enough to keep the ship from exploding during the holodeck simulation. She's only able to succeed when she realizes that the test is not whether she can memorize minutiae about the ship's operation but whether she can order someone who has the necessary knowledge to do the task knowing they'll die doing so.
* In the ''[[Covert Affairs]]'' episode "Bang and Blame", the heroine Annie returns to The Farm to complete her CIA training ... and discover who's leaking cadets' names to terrorist web sites. In one exercise, an instructor shows cadets a table full of various firearms, and tells them they can take one item to help them escape through a door at the other end of a maze. Each cadet picks a gun and blasts away at targets that pop up in doorways and windows. Annie uses the butt of a gun to break glass and remove a map of the maze. After studying it for a minute, she sneaks through the maze, ducking out of sight of the targets as they pop up. Because it's this trope, and that sort of show, only Annie passes the test. Firing a gun even once betrays the presence of an agent, who's supposed to slip in and out unnoticed.
* On one episode of ''[[
Line 63:
** And to be fair to the Chinese, fairly large portions (but not all) of the test ''do'' involve matters relating to civil/military administration and political philosophy.
* The British came across this technique in '''their''' Civil service exams. They couldn't actually care less whether you could translate, sight unseen, large slabs of Latin or Greek—what they did care about was your ability to master a technically difficult body of knowledge from scratch and apply it with precision and skill. To explain how well this worked- approximately one thousand Indian Civil Service clerks governed 250 '''million''' people in the Raj, and by all accounts did quite creditably well. For a comparison- imagine if the entirety of the United States Government consisted of Congress. No aides, no helpers, Chiefs of Staff, etc., just Congressmen and Senators.
* Part of leadership training in some military forces often involves this: trainees are given instructions to carry out some task, often involving something that they couldn't be reasonably expected to know (such as planning and executing an ambush before having received any infantry tactical training). The importance isn't necessarily in being successful in the task itself, but in learning how to craft orders, issue instructions, and coordinate groups of people.
* When a doctor or nurse is giving a basic physical examination, they'll pay a great deal of attention to the sphygmomanometer (the squeezy blood pressure cuff). While they are measuring systolic and diastolic blood pressure, at the same time they're gauging the patient's breathing rate - because people tend to involuntarily alter their breathing when you tell them you're measuring it. [[Tropes Will Ruin Your Life|If you remember this at your next physical, you stand a good chance of screwing up the trick.]]
** [[Fridge Logic|What about the people who hate getting their blood pressure taken?]] Their breathing will speed up, screwing up the results.
* Averted hard in Experimental Economics; on the contrary to Experimental Psychology and for a number of reasons,<ref>Mainly because in such experiments what is being tested is how people play games and economists want to avoid the players second guessing the purpose of the experiment, which could lead them to believe that the game they are playing is purposeless and playing 'sub-optimally'</ref> the commonly agreed methodology in Experimental Economy forbids from any sort of deception towards those participating in the test and any economist doing so would pretty much have no chance of being able to publish their results... in an economics journal, at least.
* Two possibly-apocryphal examples from the USMC Basic Officers Course:
** After an extended series of field exercises and long marches, officer candidates are given an essay test with several tactical problems before they're allowed to sleep. Later on, after they've had enough time to rest, they'll be required to grade their own tests. The actual purpose is not to correctly solve the problems, but instead to get an education in just how badly your judgement can be affected while you're severely fatigued. (Most officer candidates reported that they were shocked to discover their first set of answers, the one done after a week of war games and vritually no sleep, were barely even coherent or relevant and that they hadn't even noticed at the time.)
** During a field exercise involving a live-fire drill while chemical protection gear and non-lethal gasses (IOW, tear gas or puke gas), one officer candidate was injured by an accidental discharge apparently from several hundred meters away on the course. It was impossible to do first aid without removing his suit, but it is very problematic to expose a man to CS gas when he has a sucking chest wound. The entire class fell apart in panic because there was no designated leader, a minimum of one idea on what to do from every officer candidate present, and absolutely no training on what to do in such an instance. When it was revealed 15 minutes later that the entire gunshot was a fake (blank round fired 'offstage' by an instructor and special effects rigged up on the designated casualty, who'd been given a separate set of orders before the exercise), the instructors failed the class and then gave them a lecture on the importance of being able to take initiative and decide what to do in a situation not covered by orders... and the equal importance of maintaining, or designating, some kind of chain of command even in a situation where one was not provided beforehand.
== Tabletop RPG ==
Line 83 ⟶ 85:
[[Category:Plot Twist]]
[[Category:Infauxmation Desk]]
[[Category:
| |||