Yes, having a different opinion or experience is a problem in school tests. I know this far too well. Even nowadays, I have to accept lies at medschool, when I know that the reality works differently and "stuff that doesn't happen" almost killed a few people around me (and I do not exist btw, following the outdated textbooks and most teachers
you are talking to an AI probably).
In languages, it is at least not a life or death issue. But I remember one assignment, the "what is happiness" thing reminded me of it. We were using Harry Potter in our middle school classes (sounds great, doesn't it. Well, not really, when you do intensive reading at the pace of one page per hour and your near senile teacher goes over the first chapter with you eight times, the second thrice and the third once. And when she really sucks all the way out of it by her despicable comments and attitude. And when she still shouts at you four times a week). And we were asked as an open question "What would you see in the Mirror of Erised?" which was pretty personal. My life experience has always been very different from that of vast majority of people and weird to describe, so I chose some evasive nonsense and got a lower grade for getting entangled in it a bit. But I was so glad I did! A friend of mine answered honestly and then was grilled by the teacher about her parents' separation during a break.
The French exams are the best in this! In the DALF, you are not supposed to add much of your personal opinion in the written part. You need to weight it carefully, as you need to stick to your dossier pretty closely, that is part of your assignment. Putting too little personal content in it is usually a much smaller mistake than too much of it. Yes, you need to add some during the oral part but it is not so hard to guess what kind of stuff you are likely to be asked during your preparation.
Personally, I sometimes find it enriching to learn stuff I wouldn't choose myself for an exam. Even though it sucks most times, I agree there. But that is the magic of foreign languages.
Even a boring subject can suddenly be much more fun, when it is studied in a fun language aaleks wrote:My problem with the topics is not their obscurity but that they reminds my school essays when you had to write something about something you were either not really interested in or just didn't want to share your real opinion. For example, the classical for Russian schools (at least it was when I was in school) essay "Что такое счастье?"/"What is happiness?". I remember I wrote that it's hard to tell because for each person happiness means different things. According to our teacher back then this was a wrong answer
. In other words, I just don't like to be forced to speak about something otherwise I would not.
At the same time the obscurity of the topics is the problem
because some of them sounds to me like "The influence of the full moon on the spawning of penguins in the African desert."
So even though I prefer learning language(s) on my own and the way I like if one day I have to take a language exam I would considering to hire a tutor who's familiar with the exam's format or at least work through a prep book(s) from cover to cover.
Aaleks is probably too young for this just like me (jut guessing here) but it used to be normal in the communist block to hide one's opinions. You had to repeat stuff you didn't believe in and hated just so you would not ruin your life (education, work, and so on). As my parents and grandparents have told me, one of the favourite methods was a kind of a permanent quoting. "Following Marx, the capitalism is ...." and "Following the textbook, the goal of our society is ... " The average people had to become masters of balancing between personal integrity and social acceptability. The funny point was, that the teachers were in a similar position, except for those agreeing with the regime. So, they were accepting these evasive methods.
And "The influence of the full moon on the spawning of penguins in the African desert." that sounds like a medical physiology test question at my faculty!
(but really. The "why doesn't a flamingo freeze on a lake" was a real question of one of the examiners)
what I have written 
