I got one of those “read all the questions before starting the test” tests in high school. Algebra I, I was a freshman.
The instructions said to do things like stand up and bark like a dog. Recite the pledge of allegance, flap your arms like a bird etc. if you had the sense read all the way to the bottom of the page the last instruction was to ignore the previous instructions and sign your name and turn in the paper.
I remember sitting there watching some of my fellow students embarrass themselves and thinking that there was no way that I would ever, get up and do any of that even if it meant an F. Then I got to the last instruction and was relieved to see I didn’t have to.
Good times.
I liked that teacher right up until he tried to kiss me the last day of school my senior year (I was 18 so no longer jail bait but still) all together now…
eeeeewwwwwww! :eek:
My favorite teacher in high school said he actually did get that question on a final exam in a college philosophy class. “Why not?” earned you an A; “Because” didn’t.
Then there’s the (probably apocryphal) story of the college student in a huge class, the kind held in an auditorium, where the students are identified by the last 4 digits of their social security number rather than their names. Final exam is underway, worth 100% of the class grade. Professor calls ‘time up’. Students put down their pencils and file to the front of the room to drop their test booklet into a cardboard box.
One students stays in his seat, writing furiously.
Professor: Young man- hello!?!? Time is up!
Student: [continues writing]
Professor: Time has been called! You must stop writing immediately! Come to the front and hand in your paper or you will fail the exam!
Student: [continues writing]
Professor: [begins walking up the aisle toward the man, and as soon as he approaches the end of the aisle…]
Student: [grabs his paper, rushes past the professor and stands by the box at the front of the room]: Do you know who I am?
Professor, stunned: No.
Student: You don’t know my name? No idea who I am?
Professor: No.
Student: Good! [and he picks up a pile of exam booklets, drops his in the middle of the pile, and puts the other on top. Then he runs out of the room]
Professor has no choice but to grade it on its merits.
In undergrad, I was taking an archaeology final and came across a question that completely stumped me: “what is the name of the archaeologist who conducted the excavation of the neolithic settlement at such-and-such gorge in Oklahoma?” I had no idea, so I put “I can’t recall his name offhand, but he’s a great guy who is lots of fun at parties.” It turned out that the archaeologist was the professor teaching the class. He wrote “met him once or twice myself!” in the margin and gave me full credit.
In high school biology we were asked in a test to make a diagram of the Krebs cycle. One student drew a guy on a bicycle, drew an arrow pointing at the guy that said “Krebs,” and another arrow to the bicycle that said “Krebs cycle.” The teacher was so amused she counted it right.
Since this action causes the brush to be impossible to be retreived, the equipment would either have to be dismantled to replaced. The person that caused the damage would likely be fired because of the cost to fix his mistake with the brush. Therefore, a brush fire.
This is what I took as the meaning. I could be wrong.
I student paper-clips a $100 bill to the final exam with a note “$100 = 100% = A.” He received the paper back with a $50 bill atached to the front and a note that said “$50 = 50% = F.”
A student in a huge freshman English lit class (I’ve heard stories of classes like this at CU with over 400 students) is scribbling away on the timed final exam after the professor rings the bell and says to “Put down your pencils now.” All of the other hundreds of student put their papers in a stack on the desk and leave, but this guy is still writing away. Finally he is the last person in the room and goes to hand in his test. The professor says “No, you fail, you deliberately kept writing after I told you to stop.” The student starts yelling at the professor in a very sarcastic voice “Do you know who I am?!? Do you?” The professor puts a smug smile on his face and says “No. I do not.” The student takes his exam, shoves it in the middle of the stack of tests, turns around and walks out.
I’m just waiting for a chance to do something similar to #2 in this life.
I actually saw that in a movie. I do not remember which one, but it would have been made in the late 70s or 80s so I am sure it postdates your Dad’s experience by plenty. I think the movie might have been, “Young Doctors in Love”. A silly comedy.
I love this one (so it’s nice to see it twice.) They worked it into an episode of Veronica Mars this season - worked perfectly and I didn’t even see it coming until Logan reached for the stack of blue books and shoved his in the middle. His character can be a pompous ass, and he’s infamous in that town, as well as the son of a famous actor, so the “Do you know who I am?” was completely believable.
Haven’t seen the movie. My dad told me the story in the early '70s, and had been in college in the late '50s, FWIW. It might interest you to know that the institution of higher learning in question was, as it happens, in the Garden State.
I have a story related to this - I was a sophomore in college, taking an extremely tough Computer Science course - the “weeder” course we all had to pass if we were to be allowed to select CompSci as a major. I was going through major girlfriend troubles - she was my first real grown-up, mindf**k girlfriend (lots of nookie, cigarette smoking, philosophical conversations until dawn - but just messed up and trashing my emotions - you know the type…).
Anyway, due to the obstacle course Miss MF was putting my brain through, I had missed about 3 weeks of class and we had our midterm - worth 50% of our grade (actually more than the final, since we had a big programming project due at the end of class, too). I thought about not going to the midterm and just giving up, but decided to sit in on it and see how bad it would be. Turns out - although we were learning C++, we *did not * have to write our answers in that language - the test was more about how to break down problems into process-able chunks - but we could describe those chunks in C++, other languages, pseudo-code or even English!
I reviewed each question, wrote out my answers in either English or pseudo-code - just a few lines each - and handed it in early. My student friends who knew my situation assumed I had given up and walked out.
I got a 99 - highest grade in the class by far. So many folks were focused on getting the C++ right that they didn’t focus on the logic problem aspect of it - even though the instructor clearly stated at the top of the test that any language was fine. I came to the test without that burden and just looked at the logic problems for what they were.
Dodged a bullet on that one, I did. Looking back on that, it has had a profound affect on my life - because of that test, I passed the class, was able to declare CompSci as a major, got hired by HP, got into a top business school, got hired by a top management consulting firm, etc., etc. - I would have had to take a decidedly different path if that one test hadn’t gone well…
It’s a picture of a triangle with dimensions for 2 sides and an “x” on the third side with a problem that says “Find x”. The “x” is circled with an arrow pointing to it reading “Here it is.” Pretty funny.
