Let's pretend there was another black women who wasn't in the 99th percentile, but only the 85th. Let's pretend they would hire anyone over 80th percentile. They might, again, think she was cheating, and hence ask her more, harder, questions, like Gwen here. And since this person is in the 85th percentile, she might not have gotten all the questions right. The examainers would then take this as "proof" that she cheated and she'd be sent home.
We should be worried about the people we don't hear about.
We should also be worried about reading in details to the story that weren't expressly said.
> They tried various other questions, questions from other tests, questions they used for more advanced candidates. Gwen answered as best she could. The men were amazed. To their credit, once they became convinced that she hadn’t faked her results, they knew she would be a great hire.
The story says nothing about whether or not she got all of the followup questions right or not. I think even someone in the 85th percentile should be able to demonstrate they're in the 85th percentile with enough questions--in fact, it might even be easier than for the 99th percentile person because you're assuming that the difference between 85 and 99 is how many hard questions are answered. The first rule of cheating is: never go for 100% accuracy, it makes you stand out.
Let's pretend there was another black women who wasn't in the 99th percentile, but only the 85th. Let's pretend they would hire anyone over 80th percentile. They might, again, think she was cheating, and hence ask her more, harder, questions, like Gwen here. And since this person is in the 85th percentile, she might not have gotten all the questions right. The examainers would then take this as "proof" that she cheated and she'd be sent home.
We should be worried about the people we don't hear about.