User blog comment:Chrono Nexus/The Chunin Exams: Phase 1 Guide/@comment-4556104-20130507044553/@comment-3454557-20130507105237

There is a divide between what a character knows, and what the role-player knows. This divide is called the fourth wall. For some characters, possessing sophisticated knowledge to answer these questions would violate this divide. Maybe they aren't very smart. Maybe they didn't get a proper education. Maybe they were lazy and didn't study. Whatever the reason, a role-player can choose to have his character cheat in order to retain his character's conceptual validity. In practice, you'd need to supply a description of what your character is doing to cheat. For example: Ex Ample struggles to answer the first question. He never paid attention in class, so he isn't sure what chakra is, exactly. He recalls seeing several smart-looking ninja at the start of the exam... he decides to try sneaking a peak at others' answers to copy them. Ex Ample takes a sidelong glance at the person seated to his right hopefully, but the rival genin has completely surrounded his test with his arms and has hunched over it protectively. Realizing he doesn't have a way of cheating without being detected, Ex Ample decides instead to create a diversion. As discretely as possible, he drops his pencil upon the floor. Bowing down to retrieve the pencil, he peeks under his table to the group ahead of him in the auditorium. Just his luck! One of the papers is exposed to his sight. After quickly memorizing the content of the answer, he retrieves his pencil and continues the test. Cheating in and of itself can replace having to answer. However, there is a risk to doing so: if your character is caught cheating, even once, he is expelled. Ex Ample's method above would likely result in expulsion; it was unrefined, predictable, and drew attention to him.