Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / ia / Paper 3 / 12A / c / ii

The antisymmetric part need not be a tensor. Its contraction with every symmetric test is zero, so the premise imposes no transformation law on it. This is the blindness of symmetric contraction tests to antisymmetric arrays, now with a third free index.

For a concrete example, prescribe the same numerical array in every orthonormal frame, with onlynonzero, and take $d^s=0$. Every contraction $d_{ijk}^a{s}_{ij}$ vanishes, and the zero result is a genuine vector in every frame. But under $R=\mathrm{diag}(-1,-1,1)$ the rank-three tensor transformation law would send the $121$ component to $-1$, whereas our framewise prescription leaves it equal to $1$. Thus the array is not a tensor despite satisfying every stipulated contraction test. An antisymmetric part could be a tensor if an additional transformation law were supplied; it is simply not forced to be one.