Ah that is lame that you had to go through that. I remember in my calc class the teacher said we would spend no time learning for the government standardized test. If you can't already pass it you have no business being in the class.
Yeah, with different tests it may be different. But in the UK the government pushes for 'more challenging tests', which means more stuff to memorise, a lot of the stuff is very specific (in science GCSE and A-levels there's specific phrases you need to use to get marks. Accurate descriptions which don't include those key phrases don't get marks), and there's a lot riding on getting near perfect marks. Someone who has a good memory and a few months to prepare and an expert on the topic with years of experience (but no specific preparation) have about the same chance with these exams.
