Wouldn't it be awkward when the examiners do their reports, though? "Overall the candidates did well on this test, but they struggled on question... uh..."
"[...] on the question regarding X." I'd probably be the one grading it
I.e. it pribably wouldn't be a standardized test meant for general consumption, but something tailored for the course I was teaching. Standardized tests in general are something I'm still vaguely wrestling to figure out the proper and effective use for; they're both overused and poorly used in everything I've encountered so far, with very few exceptions
What do you mean by sequentiality? o_O
The SAT math tests usually get harder the more big the number.
Basically what you just said, mixed with a bit of "I must finish one before I finish two." That the questions are numbered sequentially at all; the numbers themselves don't usually actually mean anything (I.e. have any impact on the proper responses), they're convenience at best. It catches a lot of people, from what I've seen, both test taker and test maker.
The way written tests in general are constructed tends to imply a sort structural of "start" and "finish" which... doesn't actually exist. You can start answering questions on pretty much any question (I've started answering questions with the highest numbered one before (I.e at the "back" of the test), ferex, and randomly skipped around after that. It made several tests
easier -- that shouldn't happen.). It's less a line of questions than it is a cloud of them; structuring a test with the assumption that the test taker is going to go from start (I.e. the question numbered one) to finish (whatever the highest number is) is a poor design choice. Fairly minor, but still poor. I've answered good chunks of tests specifically because the test was structured exactly like that, not because I knew the material -- which isn't a good thing in any meaningful sense.
Tangental to all that rambling, with something like what you mentioned, you'd be a
lot better off from an evaluation perspective to have several discreet sections instead of rising difficulty; algebra shouldn't be part of the same grade as trig and general-use mathematics, ferex, because by and large they're testing mostly discreet skillsets. Iirc some of the SAT et al does that a little, but it could stand to be a bit more explicit.