  We present the results of a blind exercise to test the recoverability of
stellar rotation and differential rotation in Kepler light curves. The
simulated light curves lasted 1000 days and included activity cycles, Sun-like
butterfly patterns, differential rotation and spot evolution. The range of
rotation periods, activity levels and spot lifetime were chosen to be
representative of the Kepler data of solar like stars. Of the 1000 simulated
light curves, 770 were injected into actual quiescent Kepler light curves to
simulate Kepler noise. The test also included five 1000-day segments of the
Sun's total irradiance variations at different points in the Sun's activity
cycle.
  Five teams took part in the blind exercise, plus two teams who participated
after the content of the light curves had been released. The methods used
included Lomb-Scargle periodograms and variants thereof, auto-correlation
function, and wavelet-based analyses, plus spot modelling to search for
differential rotation. The results show that the `overall' period is well
recovered for stars exhibiting low and moderate activity levels. Most teams
reported values within 10% of the true value in 70% of the cases. There was,
however, little correlation between the reported and simulated values of the
differential rotation shear, suggesting that differential rotation studies
based on full-disk light curves alone need to be treated with caution, at least
for solar-type stars.
  The simulated light curves and associated parameters are available online for
the community to test their own methods.
