In one of the pointless high level math classes we were forced to take in university, where most of the class involved solving "proofs", the professor liked to skip over what I thought were key portions of the proof using phrases like "now clearly such and such is true".
So I did the same thing in the exams. Skipping over large swaths of the answer by using "clearly". Most of the time I had no idea how to solve it correctly. Got most of the marks for those questions though.
Proto on
and her knees up on the glove compartment
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
There are a couple of fairly funny urban legends involving exams at my old Uni (ignoring the stupid fact that we had to wear a suit, white bowtie and gown to all our exams.)
First was that in the old Uni exam regs apparently there is a clause that allows students to request a pint of mead to drink during their exams. It is however not worth trying, the last guy to do it was fined around six shillings for not having a sword at his side ready to defend Queen and Country.
The second is that if you jump off Magdelen Tower and survive you are guaranteed a First (top ranking degree). And thirdly if you can shoot an arrow down Cornmarket street (a fairly major and busy street in the city) you also get a first. As far as I know, no-one's tried the last two. (Although a fair number of people have jumped off the tower before exams, so who knows.)
that sword-at the-side one sounds like a cambridge legend- if you ride a horse into your exam, you are guaranteed a first. and some fucker actually did, but he did not have his sword, so failed, but was allowed to try again for his daring.
not to mention disputes between students in a period of a certain amount of days before and after exams is settled by duelling pistols- which are kept in the dean's office, just in case.
In one of the pointless high level math classes we were forced to take in university, where most of the class involved solving "proofs", the professor liked to skip over what I thought were key portions of the proof using phrases like "now clearly such and such is true".
So I did the same thing in the exams. Skipping over large swaths of the answer by using "clearly". Most of the time I had no idea how to solve it correctly. Got most of the marks for those questions though.
When I TA'd freshman chemistry as an undergrad, I heard stories from my students about one of the other TA's that a lot of them had had for the first semester of the class. Apparently the kids made a regular habit of inserting a phrase along the lines of "Jon, if you are reading this, please underline this sentence." A few times per lab report. None of them ever got back a report with an underlined sentence.
He was a pretty lenient grader though, shockingly enough.
I would cite the TV show "Step by Step" in every paper I wrote (regardless of the actual topic, I would fit it in somehow) for english comp, since style/formatting mattered and the actual content didn't.
There are a couple of fairly funny urban legends involving exams at my old Uni (ignoring the stupid fact that we had to wear a suit, white bowtie and gown to all our exams.)
First was that in the old Uni exam regs apparently there is a clause that allows students to request a pint of mead to drink during their exams. It is however not worth trying, the last guy to do it was fined around six shillings for not having a sword at his side ready to defend Queen and Country.
The second is that if you jump off Magdelen Tower and survive you are guaranteed a First (top ranking degree). And thirdly if you can shoot an arrow down Cornmarket street (a fairly major and busy street in the city) you also get a first. As far as I know, no-one's tried the last two. (Although a fair number of people have jumped off the tower before exams, so who knows.)
that sword-at the-side one sounds like a cambridge legend- if you ride a horse into your exam, you are guaranteed a first. and some fucker actually did, but he did not have his sword, so failed, but was allowed to try again for his daring.
not to mention disputes between students in a period of a certain amount of days before and after exams is settled by duelling pistols- which are kept in the dean's office, just in case.
But why stick at subfusc? A student who sits finals wearing spurs is entitled to a glass of sherry. The proctors gave an enterprising undergrad his sherry, but fined him for not wearing a sword. Bring back full fusc (the full Montmorency of medieval armour). According to Oxoni-mythology, anybody who sits finals wearing that is entitled to a congratulatory first. It may cramp his scribble. But the only way to atone for appearing undereducated is to be absurdly overdressed.
On my bonehead Econ final (damned engineering requirements), our professor gave us some damn equation in which we had to plug in man hours and budget to figure out the optimal number of people to hire. Now, our professor was a complete space cadet who couldn't equation himself out of a paper bag, and he fucked up the question. I did the damned thing five times, and always ended up getting a non-integer value (something like 3.41.) Eventually, out of sheer exasperation, I wrote "I recommend spending a little extra and hiring four people, as seeing .41 persons sitting at a desk is drastically bad for employee morale."
Man, the title reminds me of when I was a sophomore and we were studying Antigone, where the protagonist was Oedipus' daughter. For some reason I decided this would make a great bedtime story for the kids I babysat regularly. About a month later the third grader proudly showed me the book report he'd written for school.
"Oedipus is a story about a man who didn't know who his parents were. He was in his chariot and met a road hog. The road hog was his father and he killed him. He married his mother and they had lots of kids and lived happily ever after." (Only he had misspelled a bunch of stuff.)
The teacher had written "Very interesting story" in red ink.
In high school, since I don't have the balls to pull this hit now, I was known as the King of Last Minute Work because I usually did all assignments that didn't have to be typed in homeroom the day of and got the highest grade in the class. Also oncew, near the end of the semester in AP Gov and Politics senior year I knew no matter what I did I'd get an A. So the last two essays in the final week I wrote three pages on "Why Indiana Jones is the Ultimate Template in Human Achievment" parts 1 and 2. I actually managed to tie it to Russian government which we were doing at the time.
On my bonehead Econ final (damned engineering requirements), our professor gave us some damn equation in which we had to plug in man hours and budget to figure out the optimal number of people to hire. Now, our professor was a complete space cadet who couldn't equation himself out of a paper bag, and he fucked up the question. I did the damned thing five times, and always ended up getting a non-integer value (something like 3.41.) Eventually, out of sheer exasperation, I wrote "I recommend spending a little extra and hiring four people, as seeing .41 persons sitting at a desk is drastically bad for employee morale."
I got an A.
I dunno, that's a pretty clever way to make sure people don't just write down the answer without thinking about it. Seeing as in the real world stuff doesn't always work out to nice round numbers.
I've actually seen some research about cheating, and something like 80% of (U.S.) college students admit to cheating, and something like 95% admit to knowing about/observing cheating. As retarded as some instructors seem to be, I guess that isn't really surprising.
I'm ready to be called out on this being an urban legend, but has anyone heard the story about students on a major student university campus (I believe it was Michigan) who invented a fictitious student their freshmen year, and conspired to collectively get him a degree.
As the story goes, enough people took part that there was considerable cheering when his name was called at graduation.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
A guy in my Physics I course at uni did about half the test then attached a $20 to the test with a paper clip. The $20 was on one of the middle pages.
We got our tests back and the professor loved the gag but had to return the $20. I think, despite that he probably got a 35% on the test he still received a D- on it.
I had to take some Sociology class with a creepy prof who was obsessed with the concept of Lesbians and how they are the most sexually satisfied couples on earth. Anywho, your lowest test score was automatically dropped. I did fine on all my tests up till the last one, with the thought in mind I'd miss the last test so I could start my drive home early. It would have been the last class of the summer semester, missing class would give me a 3 hour head start.
I approached him on the last day, ready to leave, and told him I would be missing this test, as my grade was already set. He said I had to take the test because all tests are required to receive a passing grade. I said it's fine just give me a 0 and drop it. Nope, I had to take it.
Tests were composed of scantron and short answer essay. Usually takes 75 minutes to do the test decently.
I carved L A M E in my scantron and answered every short answer with a single word which would spell out the sentence: "This Test Does Not Mean Anything To Me".
I got my expected passing grade but I know that had to piss him off. Also, keep the stories coming, these are hilarious.
Taco Bell does win the franchise war according to the tome of knowledge that is Demolition Man. However, I've watched Demolition Man more then a few times and never once did I see WoW. In conclusion Taco Bell has more lasting power then WoW.
I don't have stories nearly this good, but I remember this class I had in junior high, where everyone had to read a novel and summarize it to the class. There was one student who obviously didn't read it, as I noticed when his summary was about the episode of "Eerie, Indiana" that aired the night before last. Sadly, he didn't even summarize the entire episode; he just covered the first half or so. I suppose that might have been a smart move, though, since it kept the story vague enough that the teacher wouldn't recognize it, assuming she watched short-lived Fox comedy/horror shows. I confronted him about it at another class later, but I have no idea what grade he got.
EmperorSeth on
You know what? Nanowrimo's cancelled on account of the world is stupid.
I would just like to post that even the first equation is incorrect since the left hand limit is minus infinity and right hand limit is plus infinity. And yes I have a math degree. :oops:
And as far as cheating goes, several professors I knew just gave up about cheating on homework. He would give the homework assignments for no credit, and then just release the answers a week later. The whole class was based on projects and exams.
Heck one time, the prof (this was one who still did grade homework) actually made transparencies of two homework assignments by different people, brought them into class, and laid them one on top of the other on the overhead projector. They actually lined up, word for word, figure for figure. He even pointed out that they weren't photocopied or anything like that, one was actually transcribed by hand, to identically match the other. I mean, come on. If you're gonna cheat, might as well do it with some ounce of thought.
chrono_traveller on
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
I dunno, that's a pretty clever way to make sure people don't just write down the answer without thinking about it. Seeing as in the real world stuff doesn't always work out to nice round numbers.
I suppose it could have been, but this guy was really, really bad at math. We used to ask him to demonstrate problems on the board purely for comedic purposes.
UndefinedMonkey on
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Irond WillWARNING: NO HURTFUL COMMENTS, PLEASE!!!!!Cambridge. MAModeratormod
I would just like to post that even the first equation is incorrect since the left hand limit is minus infinity and right hand limit is plus infinity. And yes I have a math degree. :oops:
Depends on whether x is approaching 8 from the left or right, I guess.
I would just like to post that even the first equation is incorrect since the left hand limit is minus infinity and right hand limit is plus infinity. And yes I have a math degree. :oops:
Depends on whether x is approaching 8 from the left or right, I guess.
One dude is a bit of a legend amongst lecturers at our law department. During an exam, he answered a problem question (for those who don't do law, they involve a hypothetical scenario and an "advise your client" at the end - usually take an hour of constant writing each) entirely in rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter, and got an A despite his obvious douchebaggery. IIRC he works for the government now. Department of Justice, or something.
In high school I was assigned to write a research paper on subliminal messages as used in advertising. Had to be about 5-6 pages or something, and include a number of citations. We were given about 4 weeks to do it, but I hadn't even started it by the weekend before the Monday it was due.
I'd read the book Night Chills by Dean Koontz recently. Anyone who's ever seen Koontz in an interview will tell you that he's a bizarre conspiracy theorist type who believes in all manner of weird shit, one of them being that subliminal messages can have a strong effect on you and basically turn you into an unwitting slave. Night Chills was about a plot to turn the nation into a bunch of mindless zombies by spiking the drinking water with something and then using code words to trigger zombie-mode, at which point they would do anything you told them.
I dug up my old copy, wrote about the plot as if it were established science, and then used Koontz's bibliography to get all of my cites. Got a B, I think.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
There are a couple of fairly funny urban legends involving exams at my old Uni (ignoring the stupid fact that we had to wear a suit, white bowtie and gown to all our exams.)
First was that in the old Uni exam regs apparently there is a clause that allows students to request a pint of mead to drink during their exams. It is however not worth trying, the last guy to do it was fined around six shillings for not having a sword at his side ready to defend Queen and Country.
The second is that if you jump off Magdelen Tower and survive you are guaranteed a First (top ranking degree). And thirdly if you can shoot an arrow down Cornmarket street (a fairly major and busy street in the city) you also get a first. As far as I know, no-one's tried the last two. (Although a fair number of people have jumped off the tower before exams, so who knows.)
that sword-at the-side one sounds like a cambridge legend- if you ride a horse into your exam, you are guaranteed a first. and some fucker actually did, but he did not have his sword, so failed, but was allowed to try again for his daring.
not to mention disputes between students in a period of a certain amount of days before and after exams is settled by duelling pistols- which are kept in the dean's office, just in case.
But why stick at subfusc? A student who sits finals wearing spurs is entitled to a glass of sherry. The proctors gave an enterprising undergrad his sherry, but fined him for not wearing a sword. Bring back full fusc (the full Montmorency of medieval armour). According to Oxoni-mythology, anybody who sits finals wearing that is entitled to a congratulatory first. It may cramp his scribble. But the only way to atone for appearing undereducated is to be absurdly overdressed.
The sad thing is, me, one of my dorm-mates, and one of the girls upstairs would've been prepared for the sword thing.
I was taking a History of Rock Music course. I expected it to be a fairly fluff class. Not quite. I got mostly Cs and low Bs on the tests. A large part of our grade was this two page paper at the end of the semester where we picked a song and analyzed it. For what, I didn't know. So the night before I attempt to write about a song, but couldn't come up with anything, so I decide not to do it and resolve myself to a low C for the class. A class or two before, the instructor said that he was getting so many questions about the paper, that this would be the last time he did them. So the turn-in date arrives, everybody but me turns in the paper.
The only "cool" thing I've ever done is- one of my college admissions essays was retardedly vague, it was something like "Who are you? We acknowledge the unique characteristics of all our students so using your medium of choice, describe yourself to us" I opened with the sentence "It all started when my father impregnated my mother." I got in.
On a similar tack, to get into Schreyers at PSU I had to have a few essays. One of them was analyzing some quote which had something to do with humans learning from their mistakes. Instead of taking the usual route and analyzing what the author might have meant, etc, etc, etc, I wrote a short story about a character reflecting upon the quote. At the end, he commented about how only the people who learned from past mistakes were left to bury those who didn't - he was burying corpses in a post-apocalyptic war type scenario. I got in.
Aside from that, there was one test where I drew this for an answer I had no idea on:
We had these little 10 question fill-in-the blank history quizzes in high-school to make sure you were doing the reading and shit. Whenever I didn't know the answer I'd put in a Lord of the Rings character. I got through the entire fellowship on several of those quizzes.
The one time I completely failed to read the instructions on an exam - we had been told that there would be three long-answer questions on our Roman history exam, and what some of the questions might be.
So I studied and prepared my answers, and on the day of the exam I write three awesome, solid essays. I get out and my friend says "pretty big relief that she only assigned one long-answer question in the end, huh?"
Our professor was pregnant at the time and decided that it would be a whole lot easier on all involved to cut down the size of the exam . . . which was great for anyone who actually read the instructions
I would just like to post that even the first equation is incorrect since the left hand limit is minus infinity and right hand limit is plus infinity. And yes I have a math degree. :oops:
Depends on whether x is approaching 8 from the left or right, I guess.
For real numbers, the limit is undefined in such a case. If the left and right hand limits are not equal no limit exists. One of several reasons why X/0 for X a real number is undefined.
I remember in my highschool geology class on the final exam there was a question that asked something like "identify what a lagoon, hook, and spit are".
So I drew a picture of a pirate ship sitting in a lagoon, and sitting on the ship was a pirate with a hook for a hand who had just spit. I labelled everything.
I'm pretty sure I got partial credit. My teacher was kind of a joker.
I've actually seen some research about cheating, and something like 80% of (U.S.) college students admit to cheating, and something like 95% admit to knowing about/observing cheating. As retarded as some instructors seem to be, I guess that isn't really surprising.
I must be a part of that 5%. I know about cheating at college, but it's only because of anecdotes and statistics like that. I always sit near the front of the class though, so my perspective is probably skewed quite a bit.
One time I got an A on a paper because, even though I knew nothing about Guy Fawkes, my two paragraph intro was just godly. Seriously, I think they still have it framed in the english office.
One time I got an A on a paper because, even though I knew nothing about Guy Fawkes, my two paragraph intro was just godly. Seriously, I think they still have it framed in the english office.
Yeah, the retarded outlines I used to have to turn in for English papers and such always got insane praise, but I always stopped caring after the third paragraph and ended up with a mediocre finish. It's analogous how I have sex with women, whom I refer to as bitches.
Loren Michael on
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
edited January 2007
On my AP World History exam (this was in 10th grade) I got to the third essay question - something about the effects of Western culture on Asia - and realized that the only things I remembered were the terms "Opium Wars" and "Maeenjee Restoration (didn't even remember the spelling)" and I couldn't possibly write an essay that bullshitted on those terms when I didn't know what they meant.
So I was staring at the blank sheet of lined paper (it had 25 lines) wondering what to do. I had 40 minutes to come up with some genius bullshittery or sit around and be bored.
I wrote "Can't sleep - clowns will eat me..." 25 times.
Ended up getting a 3 (out of 5) on the exam, enough to get 6 Gen Ed credits in college.
On the first day of an English class I had last year, the professor asked us to write a simple 1 page essay about a favorite hobby of ours so she could gauge where our writing skills were at.
I wrote one full page on how my hobby was to collect and dress up in all types of women's clothing and that it was a deep dark secret of mine and that I would constantly avoid going out with my friends so that I could pursue my hobby while they were gone because I was deathly afraid of anyone finding out.
The last sentence was something like, "But my all time favorite hobby is to lie on essays with generic prompts"
gundam470 on
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MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
edited January 2007
When I was in HS, I used the plot of Quest For Gory for all my writting assignments. I wrote out all the adventures of the Hero, with some of my own twists thrown in. Teacher loved them.
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So I did the same thing in the exams. Skipping over large swaths of the answer by using "clearly". Most of the time I had no idea how to solve it correctly. Got most of the marks for those questions though.
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
that sword-at the-side one sounds like a cambridge legend- if you ride a horse into your exam, you are guaranteed a first. and some fucker actually did, but he did not have his sword, so failed, but was allowed to try again for his daring.
not to mention disputes between students in a period of a certain amount of days before and after exams is settled by duelling pistols- which are kept in the dean's office, just in case.
I used to do this a lot.
He was a pretty lenient grader though, shockingly enough.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,542-2068709,00.html
I got an A.
Man, the title reminds me of when I was a sophomore and we were studying Antigone, where the protagonist was Oedipus' daughter. For some reason I decided this would make a great bedtime story for the kids I babysat regularly. About a month later the third grader proudly showed me the book report he'd written for school.
"Oedipus is a story about a man who didn't know who his parents were. He was in his chariot and met a road hog. The road hog was his father and he killed him. He married his mother and they had lots of kids and lived happily ever after." (Only he had misspelled a bunch of stuff.)
The teacher had written "Very interesting story" in red ink.
B+.
I'm ready to be called out on this being an urban legend, but has anyone heard the story about students on a major student university campus (I believe it was Michigan) who invented a fictitious student their freshmen year, and conspired to collectively get him a degree.
As the story goes, enough people took part that there was considerable cheering when his name was called at graduation.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
We got our tests back and the professor loved the gag but had to return the $20. I think, despite that he probably got a 35% on the test he still received a D- on it.
I had to take some Sociology class with a creepy prof who was obsessed with the concept of Lesbians and how they are the most sexually satisfied couples on earth. Anywho, your lowest test score was automatically dropped. I did fine on all my tests up till the last one, with the thought in mind I'd miss the last test so I could start my drive home early. It would have been the last class of the summer semester, missing class would give me a 3 hour head start.
I approached him on the last day, ready to leave, and told him I would be missing this test, as my grade was already set. He said I had to take the test because all tests are required to receive a passing grade. I said it's fine just give me a 0 and drop it. Nope, I had to take it.
Tests were composed of scantron and short answer essay. Usually takes 75 minutes to do the test decently.
I carved L A M E in my scantron and answered every short answer with a single word which would spell out the sentence: "This Test Does Not Mean Anything To Me".
I got my expected passing grade but I know that had to piss him off. Also, keep the stories coming, these are hilarious.
I would just like to post that even the first equation is incorrect since the left hand limit is minus infinity and right hand limit is plus infinity. And yes I have a math degree. :oops:
And as far as cheating goes, several professors I knew just gave up about cheating on homework. He would give the homework assignments for no credit, and then just release the answers a week later. The whole class was based on projects and exams.
Heck one time, the prof (this was one who still did grade homework) actually made transparencies of two homework assignments by different people, brought them into class, and laid them one on top of the other on the overhead projector. They actually lined up, word for word, figure for figure. He even pointed out that they weren't photocopied or anything like that, one was actually transcribed by hand, to identically match the other. I mean, come on. If you're gonna cheat, might as well do it with some ounce of thought.
I suppose it could have been, but this guy was really, really bad at math. We used to ask him to demonstrate problems on the board purely for comedic purposes.
Indian Jones was the first reason why I want to be an archealogist, only problem is that I'm going to have to find some nazis to fight.
3DS: 2852-6809-9411
No, you dont guess, it does.
I'm usually a good student and I'm only 19, so I don't have many stories, I have one of a teacher owning a student though...
We had to write poems for Dutch one day, most of us went down the
1)Get stoned
2)???
3)A++
road, but one guy was a lot more retarded than the rest.
He got up for his poem and said
(translated)
The boxer showed his teeth
One by
One
And look triumphantly at the class.
The teacher just said "Willem Wilmink, 1979." and told him to go sit down.
I'd read the book Night Chills by Dean Koontz recently. Anyone who's ever seen Koontz in an interview will tell you that he's a bizarre conspiracy theorist type who believes in all manner of weird shit, one of them being that subliminal messages can have a strong effect on you and basically turn you into an unwitting slave. Night Chills was about a plot to turn the nation into a bunch of mindless zombies by spiking the drinking water with something and then using code words to trigger zombie-mode, at which point they would do anything you told them.
I dug up my old copy, wrote about the plot as if it were established science, and then used Koontz's bibliography to get all of my cites. Got a B, I think.
He submitted an "essay" that consisted of a single page with "I agree" centered in the middle.
He got an A.
Did I read that correctly at the end? The paper still got a fucking 61%?
I got a B in that class.
On a similar tack, to get into Schreyers at PSU I had to have a few essays. One of them was analyzing some quote which had something to do with humans learning from their mistakes. Instead of taking the usual route and analyzing what the author might have meant, etc, etc, etc, I wrote a short story about a character reflecting upon the quote. At the end, he commented about how only the people who learned from past mistakes were left to bury those who didn't - he was burying corpses in a post-apocalyptic war type scenario. I got in.
Aside from that, there was one test where I drew this for an answer I had no idea on:
Still got a B+.
Your friend is an idiot. He could have just drawn some random boxes and random lines inbetween and probably gotten most of the credit
[spoiler:04073bb6b4]may be some sort of urban legend. I'll look it up.[/spoiler:04073bb6b4]
So I studied and prepared my answers, and on the day of the exam I write three awesome, solid essays. I get out and my friend says "pretty big relief that she only assigned one long-answer question in the end, huh?"
Our professor was pregnant at the time and decided that it would be a whole lot easier on all involved to cut down the size of the exam . . . which was great for anyone who actually read the instructions
For real numbers, the limit is undefined in such a case. If the left and right hand limits are not equal no limit exists. One of several reasons why X/0 for X a real number is undefined.
So I drew a picture of a pirate ship sitting in a lagoon, and sitting on the ship was a pirate with a hook for a hand who had just spit. I labelled everything.
I'm pretty sure I got partial credit. My teacher was kind of a joker.
I must be a part of that 5%. I know about cheating at college, but it's only because of anecdotes and statistics like that. I always sit near the front of the class though, so my perspective is probably skewed quite a bit.
Yeah, the retarded outlines I used to have to turn in for English papers and such always got insane praise, but I always stopped caring after the third paragraph and ended up with a mediocre finish. It's analogous how I have sex with women, whom I refer to as bitches.
So I was staring at the blank sheet of lined paper (it had 25 lines) wondering what to do. I had 40 minutes to come up with some genius bullshittery or sit around and be bored.
I wrote "Can't sleep - clowns will eat me..." 25 times.
Ended up getting a 3 (out of 5) on the exam, enough to get 6 Gen Ed credits in college.
I wrote one full page on how my hobby was to collect and dress up in all types of women's clothing and that it was a deep dark secret of mine and that I would constantly avoid going out with my friends so that I could pursue my hobby while they were gone because I was deathly afraid of anyone finding out.
The last sentence was something like, "But my all time favorite hobby is to lie on essays with generic prompts"