Clever student writes two words and passes exam with an A

[ENugent]

One of my favorites along these lines: the ornithology exam

A student’s biology professor announces an exam next week on birds. “You will have to know everything about every type of bird there is,” he says. The student spends the week studying beaks, wings, and feathers of dozens of bird species.

On the day of the exam, the professor has a table with five paper bags on it. Under each bag is a model of a bird. The professor lifts the first bag to reveal only the legs, and tells the class to write down the type of bird. The student groans, because she can’t even guess the type of bird. When the professor gets to the third bag, the student stands up, walks up to the table, and throws her crumpled test paper onto the table. She says, “This is the most ridiculous test I have ever seen, and you are an IDIOT!”

The professor says, “Just hold it right there, what is your name?”

The student raises her dress to the knees and says, “You tell me!”

[Dragwyr]

A good friend of mine answered the following test question in our high school junior year American History class:

Question:
Name 3 women who were influential during the U.S. Civil war

His answer: Samantha, Jane, and Mary, but the job of naming women should really be left to their mothers. (He then wrote the correct answer under this one… just to be safe.)

[Gala_Matrix_Fire]

@Malacandra

Similarly the student at an Irish college who wanted to be excused mandatory church attendance on Sundays and so put down “sun worshipper” as his religion. All went well until about 4:45am on his first Sunday morning when he was rudely awoken by a banging on his door, and when he answered he saw the cheery face of a college porter. “Good morning, sir!” said the porter. “The Dean’s compliments, and he said to tell you that the sun will be up in fifteen minutes and he expects to see you in the quad to watch it rising”.

Excellent!

[Nava]

@Plynck

This happened to a friend in a math class for engineers.

A math professor dropped a surprise quiz on students:

“Train 1 leaves City A heading toward City B (120 miles along the track) at a constant speed of 35 mph. Five minutes later, Train 2 leaves City B toward City A at a constant speed of 20 mph. Immediately upon Train 1 leaving, a bird flies toward Train 2 at a constant speed of 60 mph. When it reaches Train 2, it immediately turns around and flies back toward Train 1, and continues to repeat this until the two trains meet. At the end of two and one-half hours, how far has the bird flown?”

Students begin performing elaborate calculations until one student sat back and said “Oh…” Eventually all the students got the point while the instructor sat there grinning.

Two and one-half hours at 60 mph equals 150 miles. The instructors point? Even if there is a complicated way to solve a problem, look for a simple solution.

Actual answer:

That bird was eating some seriously steroidized seed and either took breaks or died, man…

[Coil]

@MaxTheVool

I’ve heard a similar story in which a prof has a beaker in front of him and spends the entire class period lecturing about urine, properties of urine, things to learn from urine, etc. At the end of the class he picks it up and drinks the apple juice.

To continue on this tangent.

I had a biology teacher who told us about the time when he was thirsty and opened the fridge at home and saw a glass, gulped it down and discovered that it wasn’t apple juice … :eek:. It was a urine test his wife was supposed to leave to the doctor.

[ivylass]

One day my son told us a story about his teacher asking the kids to tell him how to make a PB&J sandwich. He had all the bread, peanut butter, etc, on his desk.

So, the kids are saying “Spread the peanut butter on the bread!” and the teacher is jamming the knife at the lid, since no one told him to take the lid off the peanut butter. He was teaching the kids the importance of full and detailed instructions.

Of course, the next day, the clothes didn’t get dry because I told my son to put the clothes in the dryer but neglected to tell him to turn the dryer on. :rolleyes:

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@ivylass

One day my son told us a story about his teacher asking the kids to tell him how to make a PB&J sandwich. He had all the bread, peanut butter, etc, on his desk.

So, the kids are saying “Spread the peanut butter on the bread!” and the teacher is jamming the knife at the lid, since no one told him to take the lid off the peanut butter. He was teaching the kids the importance of full and detailed instructions.

I love it! I might yoink this for my classroom this semester.

Daniel

[JustAnotherGeek]

…and sometimes the teacher outwits the students… (another apochryphal story)

Four friends decide to go on a road trip in the time between the end of classes and the beginning of finals. They have a blast. Boozing, partying, wenching, surfing, and (dare I say it?) trying illicit pharmaceuticals. They have such a good time that they keep putting off leaving to get back for their first final (which happens to be in the same course). First they decide to return two days before the final. Then they decide to reurn one day before, then the evening before, until they decide they need to sleep off whatever mind-altering substances they’re on, and return the morning of their final. Unforetunetely for them, they oversleep. Once they awaken, they realize the quandry they’re in and try to make up for lost time. They make it back just in time to see the last of the other students leaving the exam room. The quickest thinker comes up with a story for the professor. Mixing the truth and lies, he mentions how they were on a road trip to study for their geology exam (yeah, that’s it!) and they got a flat tire on their way back to this exam. The professor, seeing their disheveled appearances, tells them to meet him tomorrow at 7:00am in his office to make up the exam. Thanking him profusely, the four leave to go begin cramming. When all four students arrive the next morning, the professor informs them that, due to other exams that will take place, they will have to be squeezed in where they can. He drops each one off in a different room, then has a secretary bring around the exam.

The first question (worth 10%), an essay, takes up the entire first page. After several blank pages, the final question on the last page reads…

For 90%:
Which tire?

[Rysto]

@Tomcat

1. 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.”

The version I prefer ends like this:

The student got his exam back with $68 change.

[ITR_champion]

In my discrete math class, some of the students responded to a proof question on the first test by saying: “The proof of this result is straightforward and has omitted for the sake of brevity.” or “The proof of this result is left as an exercise to the reader.” (Both sentences which might appear in a typical math textbook.)

Another time a student took a five-page calculus exam, wrote his name at the top and “x =” for the first problem, and left the rest of the test blank. The teaching assistant who was grading this declared “We have a John Cage in the making.”

(All these students got zeros, for the record.)

[Viridiana]

I thought this was cute.

[Nunavut_Boy]

Don’t know if this is real, but it sure made me laugh.

http://www.boreme.com/boreme/funny-2005/exam-answers-p1.php

[Charger]

A friend of mine got an A on an essay for an English class where they had to write a comparison between life and something else (ie. “Life is Like a Tree,” “Life is Like a Waterfall,” etc.). His was titled “Life is Like the Double-Helix Strands of Dioxyribonucleic Acid.”