I really struggled on college engineering exams and in general got lower scores than classmates that I had to tutor. Part of this was due to drastically over thinking and over-analyzing test questions. Some are extremely straightforward, but others can be interpreted several ways, although the normal person always chooses one method and it is obvious to them.
I can make quick decisions on the fly in a leadership role that I would say are very good, but technical matters (Ex: Solving an engineering textbook problem) can take awhile as I explore how things work.
I've been thinking a bit about this phenomenon recently. It seemed like a vague sort of problem I was having in various contexts (first time I noticed it was working on math problems), but there wasn't a good way of stating it without it sounding like unadulterated arrogance (I'm limited because I think of SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! :P)—but I think it's real. I was reading a review for the book "Proofs and Refutations" the other day, which included this bit:
> If you are someone who has trouble reading or writing proofs because you keep thinking of weird edge cases and have to verify that the proof handles all of them, ...
(this is a work on the philosophy of proving things in mathematics, btw, and they go on to recommend it to those with the above affliction.)
I could recognize the pattern being discussed there as exactly the thing I'd perceived myself running into. Interesting to see it repeated again in your comment :)
I can make quick decisions on the fly in a leadership role that I would say are very good, but technical matters (Ex: Solving an engineering textbook problem) can take awhile as I explore how things work.