terminology - What is the correct term for a must-answer-correctly question in a test?


In some tests a question is critical, ie. answering that question incorrectly makes you fail the whole test, even if that's your only wrong answer. I tried serching for 'sudden death question' but it does not seem to be the right term. So is there a name for such all-losing questions?



Answer



This is called a gating question. Think of the question as a gate to the rest of the test. If you don't get past the gate, the rest of the test doesn't matter. If you do, you still need to get past the rest of the test.



In the 20th century, one of the earliest and best-documented instances of a gating item occurs on the FAA pilot’s flight test. During the flight test, the prospective pilot is asked to demonstrate proficiency in a number of flight procedures, including pre-flight inspection, takeoff, navigation, flight maneuvers, and stalls. At the conclusion of the test, the pilot must do one last thing – land the plane. If the pilot cannot land the plane in three tries, the FAA examiner takes over the controls, lands the plane, and fails the pilot – no matter what level of proficiency the pilot has exhibited in the prior exercises. Landing the plane is a gating item. - Wallace Judd, Gating items, pare online, V14, No9, May 2009



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