Exam Fun

March 3, 2004 8:49 AM

Sorry, you've flunked.This gave me the best laugh I've had all week. I love the way you can tell the teacher marking the paper is getting more and more pissed off by the increasing ferocity of the red pen strokes. Heheheh. Give the kid an A.
posted by essexjan (31 comments total)

Give the kid an A.
Are you nuts!, the kid posted this...maybe a "C" for presentation.
posted by thomcatspike at 9:00 AM on March 3, 2004

Show the kid the door ...
posted by carter at 9:05 AM on March 3, 2004

Intelligence is for old people.
posted by spilon at 9:08 AM on March 3, 2004

This is infintely more entertaining if you've ever been a TA for a chemistry class. This looks eerily familiar to some papers I have graded in the past. Good post.
posted by mmcg at 9:10 AM on March 3, 2004

This is good.

It really made me laugh.

The best one is where it asks for a balanced equation and he put 2+3 = 7.

I wanted to be that smart ass on a lot of tests I took growing up, but I lacked the sack to do it.



[My cynical inner voice suggests this is all fake, but its funny anyhow].
posted by Seth at 9:13 AM on March 3, 2004

I dunno man.

I'm a big fan of "shoe + fork = spleen," myself.
posted by kaibutsu at 9:25 AM on March 3, 2004

Seth, I don't know that this is fake. I proctored an electronics exam when I was in grad school. These were all fourth year engineering students. This one guy was clueless, nice guy, but I had no idea how he made it to fourth year with a last name that didn't match any of the faculty.

I wander around looking menacing to intimidate any potential cheaters and see this guy writing furiously. This surprised me, I had expected that he'd just be staring at the paper so I walked over.

He was furiously filling in all the closed shapes in the exam sheet. All the loops in the e's were one colour, the o's were another colour and so on. He scribbled a few amusing comments beneath some of the problems. He did this for the full 3 hours of the exam and handed it in.
posted by substrate at 9:26 AM on March 3, 2004

I'm amused, although the instructor may not have been.

Incidentally, this is "Rangitoto College" as in "high school," not as in "four-year university."
posted by thomas j wise at 9:41 AM on March 3, 2004

I don't know about others, but the explanation of the shape of the graph just made me laugh out loud. I can just imagine what any of my teachers/professors would have said had I written that on a test.
posted by JaxJaggywires at 9:49 AM on March 3, 2004

Penguinol? heh.
posted by Peter H at 9:51 AM on March 3, 2004

This reminds me of the time in college when I got tired of writing the same old, standard issue papers for my English professors (after a few years you know what they want to see and can do it in your sleep,) so when I got an assignment to write an opinion paper on the topic of my choice, I wrote it about why I thought it was perfectly acceptable to use the word "motherfucker."

Got an A-.
posted by Cyrano at 9:55 AM on March 3, 2004

substrate: More O-Filling Fun
posted by CrunchyFrog at 9:55 AM on March 3, 2004

In Highschool AP history if I didn't know the answer (history was my strong suite, so this was rare) I'd try to come up with the funniest wrong answer possible that still contained some obscure historic reference.

I can remember at least 2 times the teacher gave me extra credit for making him laugh.
posted by Mick at 9:56 AM on March 3, 2004

I wanted to be that smart ass on a lot of tests I took growing up, but I lacked the sack to do it.

A long time ago, some friends and myself took an elective course that we figured would be easy as pie: Introduction to the Bible. By the end of the term, we had attended less than 1/4 of the classes. At the final exam, when faced with the question "Explain the Significance of...", for the "Red Sea" I answered that it was a popular resort for Israelis.

Have you ever seen what 6% looks like on a transcript?
posted by smcniven at 9:59 AM on March 3, 2004

I remember being a reader for an upper division paleoanthropology course, and the test question concerned describing Homo erectus' physical characteristics, plus any cultural characteristics attributed to them.

One answer went something like:
In the deepest, darkest region of Africa walked a primitive man. This man, alone and singleminded in his pursuit to find a new way of life, walked doggedly across the vast desert in search of an oasis of technology.

I'd've given him credit, except he didn't answer the question. What I did get was an entertaining paragraph by someone who had no clue what the answer was... I gave him no points, but did commend him for making me smile. Were I the professor, I'd probably have given him a point....
posted by linux at 10:04 AM on March 3, 2004

A co-worker of mine fondly remembers how as a TA in university she had to grade an assigned paper on woman's suffrage - the student had painstakingly and earnestly described the ways women in which had suffered.
posted by orange swan at 10:59 AM on March 3, 2004

i switched high schools midway through 11th grade. i had a test the last day of school #1, and my teacher asked me beforehand if i even wanted to take it and i said "sure".

i told this story to a classmate and he looked at me and uttered three little words:

"connect the dots"

i looked at him and was like "what?" and he said "make pictures and connect the dots. you'll never be able to do it again on a test. you've got to go for it."

i was intrigued. i did it. i hope it blew up the scantron machine.

my teacher apparently never mentioned it afterwards.

-----------------

also, i hated this post.
posted by taumeson at 10:59 AM on March 3, 2004

"the ways in which women..."

Suffering here.
posted by orange swan at 11:00 AM on March 3, 2004

My favorite part was "Cat. Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow hiss."

I wish I'd had the guts to do stuff like this when I was clueless on a test. ; )
posted by SisterHavana at 11:10 AM on March 3, 2004

Feh. The sad thing is, this is a college exam. In other words, this kid wasn't stuck in a high school, being forced to take a test in order to get out of high school - this kid is in college, wasting money and time while being a fool.

Give the kid an A? Feh. Give this kid a smack to the head and show him the door. Must be nice to be rich enough to blow off a paid education.
posted by FormlessOne at 11:15 AM on March 3, 2004

this kid is in college, wasting money and time while being a fool.

No, he's in High School. Search google for Rangitoto College.
posted by gd779 at 11:30 AM on March 3, 2004

Justify your answer: guess

Well, I thought that was kinda funny.
posted by tr33hggr at 11:40 AM on March 3, 2004

What I want to know is why he didn't get credit for this answer:
9.7 * pi = 30.47344874

/ 66.253 = 0.459955756

* 2 = .0919911513

log .0919911513 = -0.036253945

= -0.036(2dp)

sq rt 0.036 = 189736659

* 4 = 0.7589(4dp)
*10 = 7.589
- 0.589
= 7

Whats wrong with that? Looks like it is right to me.

But, then again, I was not a math major....
posted by Seth at 11:42 AM on March 3, 2004

he forgot to multiply it by 47 and then subtract a cat.
posted by callmejay at 12:02 PM on March 3, 2004

Give the kid an A? Feh. Give this kid a smack to the head and show him the door. Must be nice to be rich enough to blow off a paid education

It must be nice to take everything so seriously. Lighten up, buddy!
posted by tomorama at 2:12 PM on March 3, 2004

Can someone explain how the three box marking system works? I’ve never seen it before (outside of the 10th frame in bowling) and it doesn’t make sense. Is fork + shoe = spleen somehow less of a wrong answer than meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow hiss?
posted by Gary at 2:39 PM on March 3, 2004

Gary, I assumed it meant that the correct answer would have multiple parts, so you could, say, get partial credit if you got two out of three. But, being a lousy English major, I can't confirm this.
posted by Cyrano at 4:13 PM on March 3, 2004

i'm a teacher...arrrrgh!

there is so much, um, "dumb stuff"...

may leave the gig...
posted by aiq at 4:40 PM on March 3, 2004

Too bad he didn't take this exam.
posted by gyc at 5:09 PM on March 3, 2004

better link for my post
posted by gyc at 5:10 PM on March 3, 2004

gyc: My favorite questions on that test are 19 and 20. What happens if you pick Bobby Knight?
posted by SisterHavana at 10:50 PM on March 3, 2004