Reintegration Aptitude Test for the College Level, 2022 Edition / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Reintegration Aptitude Test for the College Level, 2022 Edition.

stormbreath 28 Mar 2022 03:59

There's really barely anything going on here — certainly not enough to justify the format. The majority of the questions are boring and unexciting, and the few that are don't really convey much in the way of a story. Further, there's no reward to actually filling out the test. Also, none of the questions even have interesting answers, with the exception of maybe 41, and even then … it's not really all that interesting. It's just different.

Also, if all the questions are going to be True/False, what the hell is the point of the drop downs? Just format them like this and you'll have the same article in an easier and less infuriating way to read:

11. All fae are therianthropes. Most therianthropes are bipedal. From this information, it can be inferred that most fae are bipedal.
○ True.
○ False.

---

can I get some nice "no signatures on my forum"
sigma-9 css machine broke
understandable have a nice day

Last edited on 28 Mar 2022 04:01 by stormbreath Show more

Maxyfran73 29 Mar 2022 11:30

What is… The goal of this test? Sorry if it sounds mean, but I just… I cannot construct any sort of story or metaphor or meaning from the questions put here; it feels random- Well, semi-random, with a tinge of dystopia, but it essentially amounts to absolutely nothing other than a bunch of questions that are either 'yeah, that's what I'd expect from this', irrelevant or foreboding, all of which pulls in different directions, making the article just confusing, instead of entertaining.

So yeah, not a fan of this one. -1

Dr Phil McClaw 29 Mar 2022 14:22

The point of the test, for example is not to see if the person has learned to speak a dead language or do calculus, thats just a display of the standards by which the Foundation holds its applicants. The point of the test might be to gauge psychological fitness for use as a sleeper agent. The point of the test might be to forensically profile applicants for ease of monitoring. The point of the test might be to create hurdle after hurdle in order to keep a D-class from being approved for release, because the committee has a no-kill-without-cause rule. The point might be all these things, because who knows what this data is being used for.

The main takeaway is, beneath the surface this is supposed to function closer to a Rorschach test than a standardized test

Last edited on 29 Mar 2022 14:27 by Dr Phil McClaw Show more

Maxyfran73 29 Mar 2022 17:23

Well, yeah, who knows what this data is being used for. That's a bit of a problem. Lemme build upon this: When you don't know what's going on, our minds fill the gaps. My problem is that none of the 'answers' for the gaps are interesting, because it's too open ended. It could be essentially anything, so what's the point?

There's this RPG Maker game called 'The Test'. It involves you honestly answering a bunch of questions. At the end, a profile is generated based off your answers. Now, imagine if, instead of an answer, all you get is a 'thank you', then the game closes. It would be kinda disappointing, as there would be no satisfying ending. It would then have to rely on the questions themselves to garner excitement.

It's an interesting concept, that much is true, but I don't feel the open ending is good for it, becuase then it fully relies on the questions being interesting, and they're fine, but not enough to carry the piece by themselves. Now, of course, the piece is in the positives, so it obviously works for most people. For me it didnt.

Rounderhouse 30 Mar 2022 15:27

#108

Yeah, reading through this I just felt…. bored? Irritated? Hungry? Some forbidden combination thereof?

I think the general format of a test/quiz thing to carry a narrative is a pretty cool idea, actually, but it's super unique. Which means that:
A) the story you tell in it needs to be just as unique, i.e it wouldn't be better or told just as well in regular prose
B) you need to take advantage of the unique possibilities offered to you by that format, otherwise it's a gimmick that doesn't elevate the story.

Reading through this, I didn't feel it fulfilled either of those requirements for me. There… really didn't feel like a story here. The impression of the Reintegration Committee I got from the last tale was a kind-of-wacky, very overwhelmed but overall-positive force in the Foundation of the near future. There was a clear, directed goal: this is a group that seeks to reintegrate anomalies into the world. This doesn't have anywhere near as clear a direction. The questions alter between the utterly mundane (uninteresting) and a handful that are definitely weird, but weird without a cause. They seem disparate, not unified by anything — just weird questions for weird's sake, thrown in for flavor and to spice up the article without considering the piece as a whole. And as a whole I can't even tell what this test has to really do with Reintegration. The issue with the ending Maxy mentioned is also there — there's basically no narrative payoff to you going through these and looking at the answers for each question.

It also didn't take advantage of the format. As mentioned, the Weird questions are few and far in between and don't join up to form a thoroughline or story thread through the article. Most of them have generic true/false or yes/no answers or textboxes — I think only 2-3 had weird answers, which sucks when you're expecting someone to click on literally every dropdown. You don't take advantage of the questions or the answers to build a story through hinted storytelling. Overall it just felt like a lot of wasted opportunity for me.

The format is good and works, fight me

RealSurrealSir 13 Apr 2022 08:18

In all seriousness though, while I understand the skepticism expressed in previous comments, I do genuinely feel like the format more than carries its weight. It doesn't need to explain most things, obviously that's not the point, it just needs to imply enough… which I personally feel like it does.

+1

chemiosmotic 01 Jul 2022 21:06

Great article. Very strong concept and execution.

I feel that the data should have been sent somewhere for the effect. +1 anyway though since it left me with a great sense of creeping dread. I also feel this is a much more realistic scenario than the recently popular concept of the Department of Fire Suppression.

Agent Gael 07 Oct 2022 17:49

+1

I'm always a fan of creative formats, even if making an online test more of a horror show than it already is may be futile.

I was more scared at realizing how much I forgot about math (and other school subjects). Can there at least be some answers? I won't ask about whether there's aliens, but I spent a lot of time on the point of intersection, and I want to know if I'm right!