They have a ready excuse - 'I just don't test well.'"
I consulted on an extremely senstive issue like this once, where a student/candidate did poorly on a three-day written examination but insisted that this was becuase he did not "test well." Wishing to indulge every charity toward the candidate, the group reviewing the results conceded that not everyone is well suited to a pencil-and-paper timed exam (done on a computer keyboard with a word processor, actually). So they determined to conduct an old-fashioned sit down with the candidate and converse kind of re-examination. What they discovered was that the testee showed even more poorly on the subsequent examination, which, in that case, put to rest the "I don't test well" excuse.
Moral: If you are charged with examining students who want to become brain surgeons, it is not a good idea to defer to their protestations that they do not test well until they have mucked up the brains of several patients, thereby demonstrating their incompetence ... especially if there is any chance that you might become one of their patients.
