On 23rd February, the examination session started early ruler university.
On the vast grounds of Pascal Field House, hundreds of students spread out in groups to take a lengthy exam. Although this would have no effect on his grade point average, it would have a serious impact on his standing at the famous Krzyzewskiville.
The first question on page 18 gave senior biomedical engineering major Ryan Su pause. Question No. 68, to be precise: “Which player scored 67 points in the game vs. Texas Tech? [4 pts]”
“I don’t know if anyone can find [that question],” Su said.
Welcome to the annual Krzyzewskiville “Ordering Test”. Its buyers in Durham this year earned a collective average score of 43.2%. ESPN’s iconic Tobacco Road native Ryan McGee managed to garner 32.2%.
On the campus of one of the most prestigious universities in the country, you’d struggle to find many exams where the questions are harder… or at least more specific.
among the many tents that dwell Historic grounds of KrzyzewskivilleThere are a range of categories – flex tents, white tents, blue tents and black tents. That last group, the Black Tenters, is the most dedicated of the dedicated.
Black Tent rules require two of the 12 residents to be “on duty” during the day and 10 members to be on duty during the night during the tenting process, a compromise for the increased commitment with the promise of premium seats in the famous student section of the Cameron Crazies at the Cameron Indoor Stadium.
But how is one determined to be at the front of the line under the black tent for the final home game of the year against a famous rival? North Carolina? There are a few factors at play. Tents can earn points through three categories. Attendance at specific non-men’s-basketball sporting events symbolizes one principle, and “soul awards” (superlatives such as being named best tent or most well-decorated tent) represent another opportunity.
And then there’s the test of ordering.
The ordering test doesn’t have the pedigree of Krzyzewski, who has been a staple of Duke basketball since the mid-to-late 1980s – it’s actually less than a decade older. But the lack of tradition does not mean that its role in the black tenting process is less important.
“We really want to reward the most enthusiastic students with the best places in the student body,” said Aidan McCarthy, co-head line monitor (line monitors make up the administrative structure of Krzyzewskiville). “So that means for people who are willing to study, know their Duke basketball history, know their team well, we think this test is a good assessment of that and it helps [those students] “Get a better spot in line.”
But creating an exam that rewards those who put in the most effort means going above and beyond to craft an exam that can’t be easily cracked – and the steps taken against cheating are no joke either.
Only four line monitors – two co-chiefs and two co-vice-chiefs – produce the examination, and they work diligently to keep the questions secret until the day of the examination. Line monitors patrol the testing site throughout the hourly time frame as proctors. When testing time arrives, testers’ phones, Apple Watches and other forms of technology are confined to the confines of a plastic bag. There is also a contingency plan for the possibility of using a Bluetooth earpiece.
“We ask people with long hair to put it behind their ears so we can see they’re not using an earpiece,” McCarthy said.
The test, at least in the 2025–26 edition, consisted of 80 questions in six sections – “Awards and Achievements,” “Coach Sheyer,” “History and Trivia,” “Brotherhood,” “2025–26 Season” and “Miscellaneous.” Some of the questions are staples that can be found on the annual test – such as questions about the Blue Devils’ career leaders in various statistics, the program’s national player of the year winners, top NBA draft picks and more.
But the element that helps the test cross the line from Duke basketball pub quiz to the ultimate test of devotion is the way the questions can be incredibly specific. For example, question number 15 (from Coach Jon Scheyer’s section) reads: “On last year’s Sweet 16 episode of Neal Begovich’s Big Dance Exclusive, what was the first quote Kohn Knuppel used when impersonating Scheyer? [4 pts]”
According to Line Monitors, the page that contained that question had an average score of only 6.67%, making it the hardest page on this year’s exam. Not a single tent got the correct number 15.
Carly Scheer, co-vice president of tenting, recalled, “I know there are a lot of line monitors, we saw that video, so we asked a question about it.” “And none of the tent people got it.”
Social media provides a useful venue for exploring potential questions. Line monitors are constantly keeping their eyes open for potential content when consuming Duke men’s basketball content online – even if the constantly changing nature of social media means some answers may not be finalized until test day.
“One of our questions was about Isaiah Evans and his one burner Instagram account. The question was asking ‘Who does he follow on that account?'” McCarthy said. “At the time, he only followed three people. We reviewed our test, made sure everything looked good before actually sending it, and we double-checked and suddenly noticed he was only following two people.
“And we were wondering, would the tent people know this? Would they know that it suddenly changed just hours before the test?”
However, just because the questions may be specific, doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to prepare. The earlier tests provide a strong starting point, as certain questions and topics progress.
“We follow a similar question format,” Scheer said. “Obviously you may not be prepared for the random questions we ask, like where does Cam Boozer’s girlfriend work (the correct answer to this question, number 74, can be found in his Instagram bio), but [fill in the blank] Tables, questions like that, if you look at past questions you can definitely prepare for a lot of questions in the exam.”
Sue’s tent – named “Pirates of the Caribbean” in which residents prepared to wear pirate costumes in the front row of the Crazies for Saturday’s North Carolina game – had a 20-odd page study guide covering all kinds of topics related to Duke’s basketball players and history. Members were assigned specific areas of study, tasked with attempting to retain all possible information for both expected and unexpected questions.
Adding to the drama is an element of game theory – according to test rules, wrong answers result in negative points, making guessing a poor strategy. If a tent is going to answer, its inhabitants would be wise to have some degree of certainty that they have got it right, otherwise they will risk losing valuable points.
“This year’s test had a question that asked which side of the court Cam Reddish hit the game winner [in December 2019]Fellow tent member Daniel Chang recalled. “And we were like, ‘Oh, I feel like we know it, we saw the videos and stuff,’ but because we weren’t sure, exactly, we couldn’t guess that question.
Tent Captain Raul Ng Tang, a senior electrical and computer engineering major, said studying for the ordering test presents a unique challenge compared to his traditional academic workload, but is also a more enjoyable process.
“It’s hard in the sense that [that] It’s more random, but I definitely enjoy it more than studying in my normal classes.”
So what makes a good score on a test that includes questions like “Duke broke the Guinness World Record for the largest game of knockout last week?” Who sponsored this program? How many people participated? Who held the previous record? What was the previous record? [4 pts total, 1 pt per question]“And deducts marks for wrong answers?
The highest mark in this year’s exam was 79.1%. Pirates of the Caribbean scored 72%, good for the second highest score.
Interestingly, Line Monitor’s data points to a pair of distinct trends in the recent history of test taking. Over the last three years, the highest percentage score on the test has increased every year (77.13% in 2023-24, 78.45% in 2024-25 and 79.1% in 2025-26), while the average score has progressively decreased (58.01% in 23-24, 51.99% in 24-25 and 43.17% in 25-26).
“There are some tents that have actually already taken off before this, studied what they needed to know and learned a lot more,” said Claire Raney, co-head of the line monitor. There is also a group of tentacles that don’t really care about studying and are happy to join the game at any point in the line, so you see some low scores there. And then I think there’s a good number of tents that just study what they know will happen on that and then hope for the best on another section.”
By now you may be wondering why we mentioned Ryan McGee in the introduction. Undeterred by the previously mentioned challenges of ordering testing, our resident North Carolina native agreed to challenge himself. their answers are here in boldHowever you will have to determine for yourself which one was correct, as the test-makers wanted to keep the answer keys secret.
Armed with only a local media member’s knowledge of Duke’s history and current events, McGee found the 20-page Google Doc while flying from Bristol, Connecticut to the Tar Heel State one night. In the interest of establishing some parity, we removed the traditional rule of wrong answers resulting in points being deducted.
McGee received… 32.2%. Yes, that’s well below the average score for this year’s crop of Black Tenters. But for a one-man band that didn’t do any studying ahead of time, we were pretty impressed.
While McGee acknowledged that he may have overestimated his ability to pass the test in advance, he pointed out that its historical authenticity gave him a definite advantage.
“I would have foolishly guessed that I would know like 80%, because I thought maybe it would depend more on history and my days growing up in the Triangle in the 1980s and ’90s,” he said. “When we got to the current thing only a student would know (“What’s the name of the gym where Cam Boozer’s girlfriend works out?”!!!) I thought I was losing the edge. But at the same time, I’m betting a lot of current students don’t know who Mike Guminski and Jeff Mullins are.”
Indeed, McGee’s strongest sections were the first and third, which focused largely on topics such as Duke record holders and history. But he also emphasized Section 4, which focuses on program traditions.
When asked which section of the test he expects traditional test-takers to struggle with the most, he pointed to the specifics of the fifth section related to the current season.
“I covered a lot of hoops at Cameron Indoor,” he said. “There are so many empty Fireball bottles scattered on the floors of student sections after those games that we can expect them to remember Malik Brown’s stat line from the home game vs. Lipscomb.”
McGee said that if he had to study for future versions of the test, he would take more notes while watching games in November and December. Chang’s suggestion for potential future test takers would be to break down the material and try to identify specialties among teammates. Ng Tang emphasized that the most important factor for success in the exam is to love Duke basketball.
The gist of advice from Afraz Malik, co-vice president of Tanting, is a little more simple:
“I’ll start early.”
