Another way to look at it though, is Kirk wanted to draw attention to the ridiculousness of the test. He was making a bold statement that his intention wasn’t to “cheat” but to show the test was stupid by rubbing it in their faces. He was saying if you’re going to fix it so I can’t win, I’m going to fix it so no one can lose.
I have my issues with the Kelvin timeline. And to be honest I think the writing could have been better in that scene. But I would prefer they replace the ending of movie two. The reactor sacrifice thing went away past just a nod to previous movies into lazy writing. And the blood thing created SO many future plot holes…