I figured out what was particularly bad about my number theory exam. I was one of those exams where almost every problem seemed to have involved some little trick to solve, and after applying the trick, the problem was trivial. You know, the kind of thing that later on when someone tells you how to do it, you think "of course. it's obvious," but you never would have thought of it. Those problems are kind of fun when you figure out the trick, but if not, you can sit there and stare at the problem for hours and get no farther. I don't think these problems test knowledge; instead they test cleverness. So I don't think they're really appropriate for a final exam. Oh maybe one on there as a sort of cool problem, but the rest of the problems should be more straightforward, testing a student's knowledge of the material.

But Sudeep probably disagrees with me.