catch out

Re: catch out



It means they do not wish to give you work which will be beyond your capabilities.
If the college course is difficult, then only the best students will be able to tackle it successfully.
Less able students, or unprepared students, might be "caught out" by the demands of the course.

I believe "catch out" in that sentence means to deliberately put someone in a position where s/he will make a mistake. So the sentence "Generally college examiners are interested in finding out what your intellectual potential is, they do not wish to catch you out" means "college examiners are more interested in testing you on your knowledge than on asking you questions that they think you'll get wrong."

"Catch out," I would add, is not a very common phrase.

I think Joe's answer is better than mine. If you try to catch someone out, you put in a question which you think will give them difficulties.

Thank you guys!

(PS: I assure you that some examiners do mean to catch us out.