[tekla]

If you can't do synthesis problems on a exam, you are not prepared for it.

I quite fondly remember a situation with a two question three hour open everything exam where I stared at the 1st problem and relevant equation for 20 minutes because I had no idea what I was looking at and was wondering if I should just leave and drop out.

Then I realized that a bunch of terms could cancel out and the problem became 3 lines trivial. The professor later admitted he wanted to give a "easy" question that you couldn't just copy out of your notes and had to think and to spend the rest of the exam on the actually difficult one.

[knollimar]

This seems like you proved my point by staring at it for 20 minutes before starting. I don't think it's fair to grade with extreme time pressure and also expect deep thought.

Being able to do deep thought quickly isn't a valuable skill, and you don't pick it up on the way ti mastery with lots of practice like you do the speed for rote problems

[tekla]

No the literal oppposite. The exam was "no deep thought required. Need to know the subject and its trivial"