History Main / SecretTestOfCharacter

A SubTrope of SweetAndSourGrapes and SecretTest. Contrast IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten, which is this trope applied to [[KickTheDog villainous behavior]]. AngelUnaware, AChatWithSatan, HonestAxe, LeaveYourQuestTest, NiceToTheWaiter, SurprisinglyMundaneExam and UnwinnableTrainingSimulation are related types of tests. WhatYouAreInTheDark is related as well: Most Secret Tests involve putting you in the dark to test you.

* ''TabletopGame/ArsMagica'': Part of the test to become a member of House Guernicus, the judges and investigators MagicalSociety, is an extensive written examination on law... but the real test is that the apprentice has an opportunity to cheat. If they do, they're told that they failed on an unrelated manner but can repeat the test. If they cheat three times, they're permanently barred from any law enforcement position.

** Dungeon Masters are notorious for doing this to their players playing Paladins, who lose their powers and have to undergo an arduous atonement if they act outside of their code. Too often, it just amounts to a KillerGM punishing the player for failing to be LawfulStupid.
** In 4e canon there is a group called the Sable Lancers that use this on potential recruits (often without their knowledge). The potential recruits are hired to carry a chest to a nearby town, with the stipulation that they not look inside it. Along the way they encounter several moral dilemmas, such as a woman whose child was carried off by goblins, two wagons crashing on a bridge, and an unconscious man in a ditch with a large sum of money on him. If the characters ignore the problems or fail to complete them satisfactorily, they fail. It goes without saying that if they look in the chest, they also fail.

** One well-circulated example of this that went OffTheRails is "[[http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Noh the Story of Noh]]" (NSFW due to Rule 34). A DM presented the players with a magical mail shirt and sword on a stand next to an [[{{Moe}} adorable little girl]], who was a spiritual construct programmed to respond to any questions with either "No" or "Please do not take this sword." It was supposed to be a test of the party's worthiness and so forth, but the players weren't sure what to do with her, so the Bard played a song, rolling high enough that the DM let the construct shed a SingleTear. The adventuring party proceeded to [[ImTakingHerHomeWithMe take the girl along with them]], arguing over who got to carry her, grabbing the magic items for her to hold so she wouldn't keep trying to go back to them, and naming her Noh after her response when they asked what her name was. The DM had planned beforehand that one of the party's magic items would get a spirit bound to it as a reward, and after this episode [[BecomeARealBoy made the obvious choice]].
** The LawfulGood god of metallic (good) dragons Bahamut often disguises himself as an old man with canaries (which are really gold dragons), sometimes to travel without attracting attention, though other times to test people (especially his followers). 4e even had rules for setting up such an encounter: namely, he would pretend to be a traveling old man asking for the [=PCs=] to escort him somewhere, at one point he would set up camp in a place where monsters/bandits etc are likely to attack. If they do attack and the [=PCs=] try to protect him, he secretly helps them with really powerful buffs and healing to make sure they don't die, and typically reveals his true nature and rewards them after they win. If they [[DirtyCoward just chicken out and leave him to die]], they fail and he just teleports away with no reward.
* The Guardians of the Veil (a sort of wizard intelligence agency) in White Wolf's ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' have a series of moral tests for prospective members. They are told to do a series of more and more morally questionable actions. In the final test they are asked to do something completely reprehensible. If they obey, they are refused membership and monitored from then on as a potential risk. If they refuse, they are granted membership. The Guardians don't want mindless drones; they want strong-willed individuals who will do what is right.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[spoiler:Dr. Bowman]] pulls this on Florence by offering her a puppy from a cryo-frozen embryo to be the first of the second generation of her (genetically engineered) species. She declines, because the situation is chaotic and she doesn't want a puppy until she can offer it the stable home it deserves.
-->'''The Spoilered Character:''' I needed to see if you would choose based on your needs or the needs of your species. The correct answer was to choose what was best for your species. [[TakeAThirdOption Instead, you chose on what was best for the pup.]] There's a funny thing that happens when you know the correct answer. [[SoProudOfYou It throws you when you get a different answer that's not wrong.]]
* In ''Webcomic/GirlGenius'' Gil's father gives him a lot of these. His introduction is a two-part one: To see if he's intelligent enough to notice that his father's theory is fundamentally flawed, and to see if he has the ability to confront his father when he is wrong.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Sinfest}}'', [[http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2609 Slick learns after the fact that taking off his glasses to make himself vulnerable is a test.]]

** Like the Stanford Prison Experiment[[note]]Zimbardo even endorsed Elliot's experiment[[/note]], the test became a ''lot'' more controversial over time. [[https://eu.jsonline.com/story/opinion/2021/12/22/did-we-fail-blue-eyes-brown-eyes-experiment-did-fail-us/8896080002/ Critics]] like [[https://www.skeptic.com/reading_room/blue-eyes-brown-eyes-jane-elliott-prejudice-experiment/ Stephen J. Bloom]] claim that there ''were'' students who objected strenuously, that Elliot ''enforced'' eyeism by separating groups of students and telling them not to interact with the other group[[note]]Interaction is one of the most effective ways to counter prejudice, and even Jim Crow areas had plenty of interracial friendships, which may help explain why so many supporters of black people's civil rights were and are white. Also, Jim Crow had been federally banned for at least 5 years when she started, and ''19'' when she went national.[[/note]] even if they were already friends, the ethics of manipulating children, and whether the small-scale experiment can even be used to extrapolate to society at large. Especially in a world that's ''much'' more progressive than it was in the 80s.

* Another one was used by a teacher to explain racism to her class called the brown eye/blue eye experiment in which she told her class that one group of people with a specific eye color was superior to the other and she was shocked about how quickly the children started believing it and even came up with their own slurs.

* An urban legend tells of a college journalism professor who promises his class that he will never give an unannounced test. He also tells them that they are required to read the daily local newspaper every day from cover to cover. One day the students arrive in class and most of them are surprised to find out that there will be a test. They protest that the professor promised he would never give them an unannounced test. The professor informs them that the test was announced...by a classified ad in the newspaper that they were supposed to be reading cover to cover.

* The entire plot of ''VisualNovel/ApolloJusticeAceAttorney'' comes about because the first victim, Shadi Smith, had a habit of playing poker with people and observing their playstyle to gauge their trustworthiness. [[spoiler: Seven years ago, he was accused of killing his mentor, Magnifi Gramarye. He initially went to Kristoph Gavin as his lawyer, but after the poker game, he dropped Kristoph in favor of Phoenix Wright, since he could see that Phoenix was both smart ''and'' honest while Kristoph was dishonest and kinda unstable. Kristoph then proceeded to [[IResembleThatRemark prove his point]] by getting Phoenix disbarred (by framing him for the forged evidence Kristoph had originally planned to present) and later murdering Shadi himself.]]

* Similar to the above, ''ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'' has a case where King Arthur judges between two men by telling them that one of two goblets would refill itself if an innocent man drank from it. The guilty man is the one whose cup was still full -- the innocent man drank, whereas the guilty one only pretended to.

* Inverted in a story that Creator/KevinSmith told about the infamous Hollywood producer [[Creator/TheWeinsteinCompany Harvey Weinstein]]. Smith said that, a week before the infamous 2017 article detailing Weinstein's extensive history of sexual assault and CastingCouch behavior was published, Weinstein called him to negotiate a possible sequel to ''Film/{{Dogma}}''. Smith, who had been on bad terms with Weinstein for years, turned down the offer. Smith said that, after the article was published, he realized that Weinstein had no interest in making the film. Rather, he knew that rumors about the article were already beginning to spread, and he was calling everyone he knew to see who was still on his side.

* ''Webcomic/SweetHome'': When Hyuk sent Hyun and Wook to get Dusik, Sook and Yeong, he whispered to Hyun to focus on Dusik, even at the price of the kids, to see if Hyun was the callous type of person who could sacrifice children.

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2021 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4866479_7.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:One of these will turn its holder into a hero, the other into a villain. Don't worry about choosing wisely. Your inner nature has already made the decision.]]

Alternately, the hero may be faced with a task outside of the challenge that is noble, but doing that task will force him to lose the prize -- an innocent stranger to save during a heated race, for instance, or helping a competitor who had become injured rather than just running to the end himself. The hero says "ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight" and goes to help.

However, the hero is then told that that forfeiting the challenge in this way is exactly what was needed to triumph. It was actually [[OnlyTheWorthyMayPass a test of character]], and the hero has passed with flying colors.

The hero seldom rejects [[RageAgainstTheMentor the tester]], [[KeepTheReward the reward]], or the whole situation on the grounds that it was an underhanded trick -- and this is not only when the other character was a {{Mentor}}, [[ThresholdGuardians Threshold Guardian]], or otherwise an authority figure, but between equals (such as a FidelityTest.) More often, the hero is profoundly relieved and/or pleased that his apparent sacrifice to his conscience has been rewarded after fearing they have lost everything.

Watch for ExactWords. When a character is told that the prize depends on the "results" or "outcome" rather than the success, it will be [[HalfTruth phrased in such a manner]] that no one would, at first glance, take it to mean anything but success, but the character saying it can point out that he is doing exactly what he said. (If more than one character tried, and one succeeded in the ostensible goal but still failed the test, expect [[TheResenter bitterness]].)

A SubTrope of SweetAndSourGrapes and SecretTest. Contrast IfYoureSoEvilEatThisKitten, which is this trope applied to [[KickTheDog villainous behavior]]. AngelUnaware, AChatWithSatan, HonestAxe, LeaveYourQuestTest, NiceToTheWaiter, and UnwinnableTrainingSimulation are related types of tests. WhatYouAreInTheDark is related as well: Most Secret Tests involve putting you in the dark to test you.

* The Oakland Raiders [[UsefulNotes/NationalFootballLeague NFL]] team was so disappointed with the poor performance and apparent lack of effort from quarterback [=JaMarcus=] Russell that they at one point gave him a DVD supposedly of plays to study at home that was actually just a blank disc to see if he would notice. When he came in the next day and said that he had liked "all of" the plays on the disc, they knew he hadn't even bothered to look at it.

* Creator/KevinSmith recalls when, a week before the articles exposing Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harassment and assault came out, the latter called him, offering a sequel to the former's film ''Film/{{Dogma}}'', as well as a new home video release of the movie (''Dogma'' is personally owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and the distribution deal they had made with Sony expired years earlier) without asking anything in return. Smith's excitement at the prospect was shattered when the articles dropped, and he found out that Harvey called several other people, in order to see who was still on his side and who wasn't.

* Creator/KevinSmith recalls when, a week before the articles exposing Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harassment and assault came out, the latter called him, offering a sequel to the former's film ''Film/{{Dogma}}'', as well as a new home video release of the movie (''Dogma'' is personally owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and the distribution deal they had made with Sony expired years earlier). Smith's excitement at the prospect was shattered when the articles dropped, and he found out that Harvey called several other people, in order to see who was still on his side and who wasn't.

* Creator/KevinSmith recalls when, a week before the articles exposing Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual harrassment and assault came out, the latter called him, offering a sequel to the former's film ''Film/{{Dogma}}'', as well as a new home video release of the movie (''Dogma'' is personally owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, and the distribution deal they had made with Sony expired years earlier). Smith's excitement at the prospect was shattered when the articles dropped, and he found out that Harvey called several other people, in order to see who was still on his side and who wasn't.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment Milgram experiment]] had you and another subject enter a room for an experiment on learning only to learn it was about obedience. A summary is below. Common criticisms can be found online (fair warning, this is not for the squeamish).
** You were randomly chosen to be the teacher or learner. You got the teacher role and the learner was sent off to memorize word pairs. You were seated before a switchboard with an intercom. There are switches for shocking the learner. You get a sample shock of 75 volts, and it hurts. The switchboard has voltages ranging from 15 volts to 450 volts, with labels indicating how dangerous the shock was.
** Your task is to provide a word and four choices for its word pair. You are to punish the learner for every error, starting at 15 volts and increasing by 15 volts per error.
** The learner starts making mistakes. At 75 volts, he screams and says he is in pain. By 300 volts, he's screaming about his heart. At 315 volts, he lets out a blood-curdling cry and no words. At 330 volts, silence. The experimenter says no answer is a wrong answer -- keep shocking the learner. At 450 volts, continue administering 450 volt shocks.
** Nothing physically restrains you. You could stop hitting switches at any time. You could run. You could refuse. You could swing at the experimenter, who is calmly writing notes in the back in his lab coat. The experimenter insists they are responsible and insists you continue. The experimenter remains calm and has the authority of an Ivy League university behind him.
** The experiment tests obedience to authority. The subjects were ordinary Americans from New Haven, CT, recruited for the experiment at Yale. The proposed goal was to see if it took some kind of lunatic to do serious violence to another person just because an authority said to do it. Most experts thought less than 4% of the population would hit that 450 volt switch. About 65% did.
** Everyone but you is an actor employed by the experimenter, including during the variants discussed below. The random process of determining teacher vs learner was rigged; you were always the teacher. No one was in any real physical danger.
*** Further experiments tested variants. Having to see (or touch) the victim drove up disobedience. Being part of a group was dicey; when one person objected, others (with visible relief) also rebelled. Being in a group going along with it drove down disobedience.
** Subjects showed a lot of emotional stress even when shocking the learner. They cried, chain-smoked, swore, shouted, protested, apologized, demanded to speak to the experimenter's boss...and kept right on shocking the learner. The experimenter had four pre-scripted lines; he insisted you continue, he said he was responsible, and he said the shocks might hurt but were harmless. He would stop the experiment after his fourth pre-scripted answer to your objections was noted.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment Milgram experiment]] had you and another subject enter a room for an experiment on learning only to learn it was about obedience. A summary is below. Common criticisms can be found online. See the note; it's not for the squeamish. [[note]]

%% Please see thread to discuss a new image.

* In [[http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/pt1/pt117.htm The Girl and the Dead Man]], all three girls are offered the choice between a whole bannock (flattened loaf of quick bread) and their mother's curse, or half and their mother's blessing; the older two opt for the curse, and [[YoungestChildWins the youngest]] for the blessing, and only the last succeeds.

* In [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/14serpent1911.html The Serpent]] and [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/pentamerone/11sisters1911.html The Three Sisters]], the king has [[EngagementChallenge promised that who cures the prince may marry him]]. He is cured by a woman but refuses because he is already married. The delighted woman reveals that she is his wife.
* ''Literature/{{Bearskin}}'':

* In [[http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/diamondstoads/index.html Diamonds and Toads]], the [[YoungestChildWins younger daughter]] is willing to give an old woman (a disguised Fairy) a drink from the well; even warned, her older sister is unable to be polite, even though this time the Fairy is disguised as a woman of wealth and taste.

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[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2021 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4866479.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Proper use of the power requires selection of a totem for mastery of one's true self."]]

!!Example Subpages:

!!Other Examples:

[[quoteright:350:[[WesternAnimation/HeManAndTheMastersOfTheUniverse2021 https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/4866479.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:"Proper use of the power requires selection of a totem for mastery of one's true self."]]

Alternately, the hero may be faced with a task outside of the challenge that is noble, but doing that task will force him to lose the prize — an innocent stranger to save during a heated race, for instance, or helping a competitor who had become injured rather than just running to the end himself. The hero says "ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight" and goes to help.

The hero seldom rejects [[RageAgainstTheMentor the tester]], [[KeepTheReward the reward]], or the whole situation on the grounds that it was an underhanded trick — and this is not only when the other character was a {{Mentor}}, [[ThresholdGuardians Threshold Guardian]], or otherwise an authority figure, but between equals (such as a FidelityTest.) More often, the hero is profoundly relieved and/or pleased that his apparent sacrifice to his conscience has been rewarded after fearing they have lost everything.

* Similar to the above, ''ComicStrip/PrinceValiant'' has a case where King Arthur judges between two men by telling them that one of two goblets would refill itself if an innocent man drank from it. The guilty man is the one whose cup was still full--the innocent man drank, whereas the guilty one only pretended to.

* Goofy employs one on Max in ''WesternAnimation/AGoofyMovie''. The two eventually come on a junction where going left on would lead to what Max wants, and going right would lead to what Goofy wants. [[spoiler:Max changed the route on the family map to take them to Los Angeles instead of Lake Destiny in Idaho. Goofy already knew about this since the night before thanks to Pete, but Goofy wanted to see what Max was going to choose after proclaiming to Pete that he trusts Max to make the right choice. However, Max chooses to go left. While Goofy complies, he immediately enters TranquilFury as a RageBreakingPoint, knowing that Max failed the test. This results in a ThirdActMisunderstanding.]]

* The Guardians of the Veil (a sort of wizard intelligence agency) in White Wolf's ''TabletopGame/MageTheAwakening'' have a series of moral tests for prospective members. They are told to do a series of more and more morally questionable actions. In the final test they are asked to do something completely reprehensible. If they obey, they are refused membership and monitored from then on as a potential risk. If they refuse, they are granted membership. The Guardians don't want mindless drones; they want strong-willed individuals who will do what is right.

* At the climax of ''Theatre/TheCaucasianChalkCircle'', a judge must decide whether a child should be returned to his biological mother or remain with the woman who had raised him as her own son. He settles it by [[TitleDrop drawing a circle with chalk]] and placing the child in the center of it. He tells the women to pull on the boy and that whichever of them can pull him out of the circle first will be considered the true mother. The birth mother pulls hard, the adoptive mother lets go rather than injure the child. Similar to the Judgment of Solomon story, the judge then reveals that it was a test, and that the adoptive mother has proven herself to be the better mother because she alone put the child's interests ahead of her own.

** In ''The Merchant of Venice'', Portia's deceased father leaves behind a test for her suitors. They are presented a room with three chests, each one made of gold, silver, or lead, and told that one of the three contains a painting of Portia; whoever finds that painting will win her hand. Choosing the expensive chests ends in failure--the leaden chest is the correct option, as it shows that the suitor is not motivated by greed. In an interesting twist on the trope that [[{{Foreshadowing}} foreshadows her brilliant mind]], Portia takes action when Bassanio, a man she actually likes, comes to try the test. She arranges a song which contains a clue to the answer ("Tell me, where is fancy bred? / In the heart, or in the head?", and so on) to play while Bassanio is the room with the chests--after all, her father only said she [[ExactWords couldn't outright reveal the trick]], so hinting at it is perfectly OK.
*** The same play later subverts the trope for comedy. Portia and her servant Nerissa, who have [[DisguisedInDrag dressed themselves as a male lawyer and clerk, respectively]], to save Bassanio's friend Antonio from his contract with Shylock, decide to play a trick on their husbands, who don't see through their disguises. Lawyer!Portia demands that Bassanio reward "him" with his wedding ring, which he had previously promised to never give away under any circumstance; Clerk!Nerissa asks the same from Gratiano, her own spouse. Both men hand over the rings (albeit with much reluctance), and when they meet their undisguised wives, the women make a big show of accusing their husbands of being lying, cheating jerks for giving up the jewelry--it's all clearly stated to be a joke, though, and they're not ''actually'' judging Bassanio and Gratiano, just having some fun at their expense. Portia and Nerissa then drop the ruse and reveal the truth, much to the men's surprise.

* There are several examples in ''[[VisualNovel/SevenKingdomsThePrincessProblem Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem]]'':
** If you attract Lord Clarmont's interest enough to earn an invitation to dinner with him during the first week, on the way there you're met with a secret test in the form of one of the Isle's servant girls. How you treat the servant when you think no one else is watching, and [[NiceToTheWaiter what you reveal about your sense of compassion and ethics]] in the process, determines whether or not Clarmont will be willing to risk opening up to you on any kind of personal level.
** It's hard to tell how much was arranged in advance and how much is simply opportunism, but Prince Zarad is certainly watching to see what the PlayerCharacter will do when Avalie tries to bait her into getting jealous, and if she can't see through the attempt or proves too willing to jump to conclusions, he'll lose interest in getting to know her better.
** Almost everything the Matchmaker does is some kind of test, from the way she verbally eviscerates you during your first meeting onwards.

** The Emperor convinces Karamazov that his order to disband the Inquisition was him testing whether the man would stay loyal even if it meant disobeying orders. [[spoiler:Double subverted, as the Emperor wasn't testing that – he was checking which Inquisitors have to be gotten rid of. The ''good'' Inquisitors would either obey the order or disobey it and continue to do good for the Imperium. The bad Inquisitors would assume the letter was heresy and go to Terra to root it out]].

* A college-age Wonderella fails her entrance exam to Bob Jones University this way in ''Webcomic/TheNonAdventuresOfWonderella''. The test was multiple choice, with an automatic failure to anyone who darkened the perfectly pure, white ovals. ("Racial purity must never be compromised!")

* The ''Webcomic/{{Achewood}}'' arc with Cartilage Head. [[spoiler:He proved himself a coward who would desert a dying man.]]

* In Chapter 2 of ''Webcomic/{{Zeldanime}}'', Link's second test is to drink from a blessed fountain filled with the "water of judgement". According to Zelda, a [[IncorruptiblePurePureness pure-hearted]] person will be rejuvenated by drinking the water, but a corrupt person "will meet a very slow and dreadful fate." She tells him to leave if he doesn't want to take the test, but he stands his ground. He hesitates for a few moments given a few past minor misdeeds, but takes the risk and drinks the water... and nothing happens. Zelda then reveals that it was ordinary water all along and an evil person wouldn't have drank the water, so Link passed.
* ''Webcomic/WapsiSquare'': [[http://wapsisquare.com/comic/bestthingtoeverhappen/ The golem girls think the decision to summon them perpetually drunk was one of these.]] It was actually just a stupid mistake by Tepoz.
** [[http://wapsisquare.com/comic/justsomeguy/ It's a test of loyalty -- really!]]

* Done by jurors at the final Tribal Councils in Seasons 2 and 8 of ''Webcomic/SurvivorFanCharacters'' along the lines of "Would you still be willing to be friends with me even if I don't vote for you?" More specifically, [[spoiler:Bitsy tells Ellise that she won't be voting for her and then asks her if they can still be friends after the game even if her vote costs her the million, and Johnny does something similar with Matt in Season 8. Of course, it turns out that both jurors had always been planning to vote for their respective friends and just wanted to make sure that their friends didn't view them as just a jury vote. Ellise passes Bitsy's test with flying colors, but Matt bombs Johnny's test in spectacular fashion, effectively screwing himself out of the only vote he could ever have gotten]].
* In [[http://slimythief.com/thieves-guild-2/ this]] ''Webcomic/SlimyThief'' strip, the thieves guild tasks Aisha with escaping from a prison cell with her hands and head locked in a pillory. It's supposed to be an impossible task to test Aisha's self-control, but thanks to her body being merged with a slime creature she simply makes her body extremely slippery she ends up completing the task anyway.

* In ''Webcomic/JosephAndYusra'', Mary tested whether Yusra (and later Joseph) has [[PsychicPower supernatural power]].
* In ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'', [[spoiler:Dr. Bowman]] pulls this on Florence by offering her a puppy from a cryo-frozen embryo to be the first of the second generation of her (genetically engineered) species. She declines, because the situation is chaotic and she doesn't want a puppy until she can offer it the stable home it deserves.
-->'''The Spoilered Character:''' I needed to see if you would choose based on your needs or the needs of your species. The correct answer was to choose what was best for your species. [[TakeAThirdOption Instead, you chose on what was best for the pup.]] There's a funny thing that happens when you know the correct answer. [[SoProudOfYou It throws you when you get a different answer that's not wrong.]]
* ''Webcomic/KillSixBillionDemons'': {{Inverted|Trope}} when the legendary MasterSwordsman Meti orders a prospective student to shave their head with a rusty sword. Instead, the supplicant spends ''fourteen years'' trying to prove themself worthy of her instruction, only for a random street urchin to grab the sword, bloodily cut his own hair, and be accepted on the spot.
-->'''Meti:''' ...You cannot follow simple instructions. Did you not hear me the first time, all the way back then? I do not train idiots.
* In ''Webcomic/GeneralProtectionFault'', Nick chats on IRL with someone named "Pookel," while developing feelings for his coworker, Ki, unaware that the two are one and the same. Ki continues messaging him as Pookel until he breaks him off, as an apparent test of his loyalty, unaware that he's already figured out Pookel's identity. Unfortunately for Ki, she doesn't work up the nerve to tell him until Trudy maliciously gives Nick a clue to Pookel's identity. Nick angrily calls Ki out over the entire stunt, but ultimately forgives her.
* In ''Webcomic/{{SSDD}}'' CAS Diplomatic Adviser Krutz dressed his much-shorter bodyguard in his official uniform before interviewing for an assistant, he hired Johnathan Andrews immediately after he offers to shake hands with [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20061107.html the right one]]. Later, Krutz sent Johnathan and his bodyguard to pick up a sandwich just before the Citadel went into lockdown, forcing them to jump over a closing blast door and get apprehended by security, whom Krutz bribed to keep locked up. After John got out he tossed the sandwich in Krutz's face and tendered his resignation, only to be immediately [[http://www.poisonedminds.com/d/20080325.html promoted]].
* In ''Webcomic/MeatShield'', Jaine performs her thesis recital to become a fully-accredited Bard. Her performance is rejected out of hand by the three-judge panel[[note]]Two tenured professors and a twitchy intern sitting in for the third judge[[/note]] because they didn't care for the subject matter ([[TakeOurWordForIt a record of the adventures Jayne and her party had had thus far]]) and they tell her to resubmit next year with "more suitable subject matter". Jaine leaves in tears... Before turning right back around and telling the judges off: She was a Bard, diploma or no. Storming out, she runs into Dr. Tunny, the head of the College of Lore - the one who sent the intern. He informs Jaine that the real test was whether she'd simply accept such an unfair judgement or would she persevere regardless.
--> '''Dr. Tunny:''' You were absolutely right in there: You ''are'' a bard. [hands her a gold coin with a Bard's insignia] This just makes it official. Well done, Ms. L'Vallis. Well done.

* In Case 49 of ''WebOriginal/TheCodelessCode'', Master Banzen tests a series of monks. He tells them to wait in a room while he studies their source code. In fact, he's testing whether they'll clean up the paper sack he discarded in that room (and by extension, whether they clean up their code without being asked).
* In [[http://alicorn.elcenia.com/stories/tower.shtml Tower]], we see a "Jump off a Tower" secret test that isn't exactly pass/fail.
* In [[https://notalwaysright.com/we-have-a-feeling-we-know-what-the-rest-of-the-password-was/178864/ this]] ''Website/NotAlwaysWorking'' story, the submitter's boss uses one of these to weed out scammers pretending to be IT personnel - when asked for user ID, he also gives out a fake password (he got as far as '[[PrecisionFStrike g-o-f-u-]]' before being interrupted). When the person at the other end yells at him to never give out his password, he knows that's the real IT guy.
* In ''[[http://www.rinkworks.com/peasoup/blind.shtml This]]'' "Pea Soup For The Cynic's Soul" story is about Brent Smith, a soldier in the Persian Gulf War who's matched with a pen pal named Julie Farmington, whom he's never met before. After the war ends, Brent's set to meet Julie in an airport, with only a single clue to her appearance - a white carnation - since Julie doesn't know if he's only interested in her looks, or because he doesn't have anyone else. He sees an unattractive woman with the carnation, and asks her out on a date, at which point the woman shows him to the ''real'' Julie, who apologizes for the deception. Brent isn't put out, but he's disappointed that she's apparently even uglier than the woman she had pose as her, and cuts ties with her.

* Creator/DanielThrasher: In "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytHaqTw-zsw Welcome to the After (music video)]]", the Judge gives Daniel the chance to learn one thing he always wanted to know to see whether he deserves to go "[[{{Heaven}} Up North]]" or "[[{{Hell}} Down South]]". [[SkewedPriorities Daniel asks if his high school girlfriend cheated on him]]. The video is just the Judge telling him that it was a test and he failed it.

** The learner starts making mistakes. At 75 volts, he screams and says he is in pain. By 300 volts, he's screaming about his heart. At 315 volts, he lets out a blood-curdling cry and no words. At 330 volts, silence. The experimenter says no answer is a wrong answer - keep shocking the learner. At 450 volts, continue administering 450 volt shocks.

** Those stories have nothing on medieval judges according to research into trial by ordeal that is discussed by ''Freakonomics'' authors Steven Dubner and Stephen Levitt. Let's suppose you have some sort of tort - say, Rolf is accusing Wilhelm of using crooked scales last week at market - and you're a medieval judge who has fifty such cases before him. Good luck getting any evidence to resolve this case. So you send Wilhelm off to grab a red-hot iron bar before the congregation under the supervision of the clergy. We expect Wilhelm to get crispy, right? The research looked at 308 similar cases. In 100 cases, the defendant refused to undergo the ordeal, settling the matter nicely. In the remaining 208, only one in three ordeals resulted in injury to the defendant. This requires modest speculation, but it seems that the priests would tamper with the trial by ordeal. This accomplished several things:

* The ''Freakonomics'' authors discuss a beautiful example of this. They designed an algorithm that looked at terrorists' bank habits and gave it to the government of the United Kingdom. The algorithm was very effective at turning in suspected activity, with a very low chance of flagging an innocent person and a very high chance of snagging a terrorist (in statistics, a sensitivity and high specificity - see note). However, because the innocent so greatly outnumber the guilty, many innocent people still wound up on a list thanks to the algorithm (in statistics, there was a low positive predictive value - see note). So the authors and the government went to press to discuss their project and revealed one of the algorithm's most powerful predictors: terrorists are young enough with enough family to justify life insurance, but they don't buy it (as it wouldn't pay off if they died in an attack). Naturally, the press was outraged that this secret would be revealed. The foolish Americans were excoriated by the British media - "How dumb are those Yanks? And how dumb is our government?" Despite the guffawing, the now in-place algorithm was watching that list of suspects to see who suddenly ran out to buy insurance... [[note]]In statistics, sensitivity is the percentage of people who actually have the condition you are interested in that your test identifies correctly. Specificity is the percentage of people who your test correctly identifies as not having the condition of interest. As an exercise, let's say that the test is an algorithm designed to ID terrorists. It has 99.5% sensitivity and 99.5% specificity. Wow! Near perfect, right? Surely you can take the answer the algorithm gives you to the bank? Well, not so fast. Imagine you have a country like the UK, with a population of about 50 million. Your intelligence agencies, collaborating with your allies, estimate you have about 500 possible terrorists to find. With sensitivity 99.5% and specificity 99.5%, an algorithm would positively identify about 497 of the 500 terrorists. That's very helpful. Unfortunately, with a population of 50 million innocent people, your algorithm correctly weeds out "only" 99.5% of them. That means 0.005% of 50,000,000 people are incorrectly flagged as terrorists - or 250,000. Your positive predictive value - the odds a person the algorithm has flagged is actually a terrorist - is 497.5/250,497.5, or about 0.2%. For every 500 investigations you launch, you might investigate zero-to-three actual terrorists. Clearly an algorithm which ID'd terrorists with a sensitivity and specificity of 99.5% would not be nearly good enough for a situation like what the UK was facing. The UK's algorithm was apparently good enough to keep using, and even to keep refining with the nasty little secret test discussed above.[[/note]]