Getting Started - The Test Mode

The Test mode is activated by clicking the corresponding button on the main window or by selecting Controls | Test Mode from the main menu. The keyboard shortcut for it is Ctrl+T (on Windows and Linux) or ⌘T (on macOS).

The application will normalize the audio if needed. When you use an external audio file as a source, the program will read and crop it before that. Then the playback of the first example will start automatically.

To complete a test, you should do ten examples in a row. Use sliders’ handles to input the guessed answers. This can be done during or after the playback of each example. Once your answer is accepted, the right answer will be labelled and highlighted in green immediately. The Next Example control/button will become enabled so that you could proceed. Unlike in the Learn mode, the sliders with changed handles’ positions (the user input) may differ from the highlighted ones (the right answer).

You can play and stop a current example as many times as you want with the Play and the Stop buttons/controls correspondingly. Any time you do not give the exact right answer, it is highly recommended to play the example once again for better training effectiveness.

When the mode is activated, the Exercise / Score Information window is shown. It contains useful information about a current test: examples count, test status (in progress, finished with pass/fail or canceled), the user and the right answers, and scoring.

The score calculation is quite straightforward. The maximum score for an example is 10, and the maximum total score for a test is 100. When a user’s answer is equal to the right answer, he or she gets 10 out of 10. Each 1-octave error subtracts 1 score point. Each 1/3-octave error subtracts 0.33 points. The boost/cut mistake takes off 2 points. In case of dual-band exercise, the scores for each frequency band in an example are count separately, with 5 being the maximum and 0 being the minimum for a frequency band. And then a maximum possible sum is taken as the score for the example.

The following table shows the expected score range for different types of exercises (EQ patterns):

To pass the test, you must get a total score which is 5 points below the lower end of the expected score range or higher. If your score is higher than the upper end of the range, you get the passed+ mark.

Changing EQ settings is disabled in this mode. Loading another audio source or switching to another mode would cancel the current test. Selecting another EQ Pattern would reset it as well.

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