What actually surprised me about the Merito Score when I first ran it

Expected either false reassurance or vague generic feedback, got neither — the criterion-by-criterion breakdown was specific enough that I could immediately tell which of my self-assessments had been overconfident. The biggest surprise: I'd mentally been counting a criterion as "probably fine" that came back with a clear flag, and looking at the specific reasoning, it made sense — I had the right kind of evidence but not enough of it, and I hadn't been honest with myself about that gap until it was laid out plainly. On the flip side, a criterion I'd been anxious about actually looked more solid than I'd given myself credit for. The evidence-strength badges (the traffic-light system) were more useful day-to-day than the overall score itself, honestly — the aggregate score is a nice summary, but going back to check individual badges as I added evidence over the following weeks is what actually drove where I focused my effort.