Two years ago when the head of our school, Tanaka Shihan, was here from Japan there was lots of preparation going on for testing, including my shodan test.
We were all at dinner the night before the test, after an all day seminar with Tanaka Sensei. At one point, Sensei asked my instructor and one other yudansha their respective ranks (they were both nidan) and how long they had held that rank. Without blinking an eye, Tanaka said "You can test tomorrow".
They had been busy getting their students ready for testing, and hadn't had a thought at all about testing themselves.
They both did fine, of course.... but were a little miffed at first for having it tossed at them. Not surpisingly, as we all had more sake, it didn't seem to bother them as much
