jaimeastorga2000 comments on Shut Up And Guess - Less Wrong
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They were in SAT prep books 25-27 years ago. (I took the SAT's while I was still 15.) The explanation given was something along the lines of, "Most people say that the SAT penalizes you for guessing, but this is wrong. Rather, it simply makes sure that, on average, guessing won't get you any extra points if you don't know anything about the question. If you can eliminate even one wrong answer out of five, you will always come out ahead by guessing. If you can't, then you still won't lose anything by guessing." They then showed math and examples to back it up.
It was actually in a very early part of the book I read, because they wanted you to understand how important it was to be able to identify even one wrong answer, and thus why the methods you were going to learn for doing that were important.
I remember seeing advice regarding the SAT and AP exams that recommended guessing when eliminating either one or two responses. Almost nobody seemed to know the theory behind it, which I guess is why both options sounded perfectly plausible. I was horrified when my AP Lit teacher recommended to the class guessing only if 2 or more responses could be eliminated, and couldn't understand the math I did to show otherwise and wondered how such a thing was possible then there was a "penalty" for guessing (yes, she actually based her understanding of the situation on the name given rather than on doing any logical analysis; Orwell was surely rolling in his grave). Thankfully, she decided to trust me anyways.