Both can be true at the same time. You outlined the objective, the money is an extra constraint (and let's be honest, when isn't money an extra constraint?)

Tests are a way of largely seeing if a response to a question was memorized.

The lesson of how to swim sometimes only comes in applying the learning.

> Tests are a way of largely seeing if a response to a question was memorized.

Some tests require memorized knowledge, like what is the stall speed of your airplane. Some tests require reasoning skills, like what is the stress in this beam.

These are different levels of learning.

There are learning frameworks that explain it all well enough.

Learning what something is, vs applying what you learned has different terminology in the learning world, but not everyone might use that.