They all give you a short period of time to finish lots of calculations, our professor never revealed how in depth numbers are going to be, therefore under those conditions they know to make the first test incredibly difficult (or some other trick), and you know the only reason they do this is probably because they just want to encourage people to study and do well for the remainder of the course

The real conspiracy theory is that statistics professors statistically calculate ways to manipulate their class into doing things, think about it. They probably got together and said hey guys lets all make the first test always super-difficult and cheap because this way all students will take their studies seriously, MWHAHAHAHAH! I bet you my stats prof looks up stats on how well students study for their classes, what they will most likely do, etc.

Thats absolutely shenanigans and bogus trickery I will get scholarly revenge on you all